The landmark federal prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump effectively came to an end Monday, as Special Counsel Jack Smith asked a judge to dismiss felony charges against Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election and dropped a fight to reinstate classified document charges—ending the historic saga before Trump retakes office.
Smith said the charges must be dismissed before he’s inaugurated in January due to the DOJ’s decades-old policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents.
The special counsel asked a D.C. court Monday to drop the election subversion charges, writing the DOJ and the country “have never faced the circumstance here, where a federal indictment against a private citizen has been returned by a grand jury and a criminal prosecution is already underway when the defendant is elected President.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan accepted Smith’s request Monday afternoon and dismissed the case without prejudice.
The charges against Trump for withholding classified documents were dismissed by a Florida-based federal judge earlier this year, and on Monday, Smith’s team dropped its appeal of that decision in Trump’s case—though Smith said he’s still appealing the dismissal as it relates to two other defendants.
Smith signaled the cases could come to an end weeks earlier: On Nov. 8—three days after Trump was elected the next president—Chutkan paused all deadlines upon Smith’s request, and Smith said he would provide a status report on Dec. 2 about how he would proceed.
Smith made a similar request to pause his appeal of the dismissal of Trump’s criminal case in Florida over withholding White House documents on Nov. 13, saying the government needed “time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy.”
Trump responded to the cases being dropped, saying on Truth Social these cases—and the others he has faced in New York and Georgia—were “empty and lawless, and should never have been brought.” He continued: “It was a political hijacking, and a low point in the History of our Country that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds, and WON.”
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11.25.2024