Trump’s charges of concealing classified documents were dismissed by a Florida-based federal judge earlier this year, and on Monday, Smith’s team dropped its appeal of that ruling in Trump’s case – though Smith said he is still appealing the dismissal because it ties in with two other defendants
The main federal prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump ended yesterday, after special counsel Jack Smith asked a judge to dismiss criminal charges against Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 election and dropped a fight to reinstate the classified documents charges, ending the historic saga before Trump returns to office. Smith said the charges should be dropped before he is inaugurated in January because of the DOJ’s decades-long policy of not prosecuting sitting presidents. The special counsel asked a D.C. court to dismiss the election-overthrowing charges, writing that the DOJ and the country “have never faced the circumstances 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.”
SMITH’S RULING
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 ruling in Trump’s case — though Smith said he is still appealing the dismissal because it ties into the other two defendants. Smith signaled that the cases could be over weeks early.
On November 8, three days after Trump was elected president-elect, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the election-overturning case, suspended all deadlines at Smith’s request, and Smith said he would provide a status report on December 2 on how to proceed. Smith made a similar request to stay his appeal of the dismissal of Trump’s criminal case in Florida over his withholding of White House documents on November 13, saying the government needed “time to assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course of action consistent with Department of Justice policy.”
TRUMP ABOVE THE LAW
Special counsel Jack Smith’s announcement that he is seeking to dismiss his election-overturning case against President-elect Donald Trump “is a disgrace to the rule of law in this country. It proves that Donald Trump is above the law,” said Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman, adding that he understood Smith’s reasoning. “The Supreme Court put him above the law,” Goldman said.
“But now he appears to be escaping full responsibility for the crimes charged by a grand jury.” Goldman warned against normalizing the waiver of liability in relation to Trump. “We cannot normalize the fact that Donald Trump as president-elect should not be held accountable for the crimes he committed before. If he had fired the special counsel, that would have been a gross abdication of the independence of the Justice Department.”
LEGAL SAGA
Donald Trump spokesman Steven Cheung called special counsel Jack Smith’s plans to drop the 2020 election overturning case against the president-elect a “major victory for the rule of law.” “The American people re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate to make America great again. “Today’s decision by the DOJ ends the federal unconstitutional cases against President Trump and is a major victory for the rule of law. The American people and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system, and we look forward to uniting our country,” he said.
Trump was indicted by the Justice Department in August 2023 for attempting to overturn his 2020 election loss, one of four indictments filed against Trump at the state and federal levels – a historic move, marking the first time a former president has faced criminal charges.
