Special counsel Jack Smith drops election subversion and classified documents cases against Donald Trump

CNN
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Special Counsel Jack Smith is drop the federal election subversion and the mishandling of classified documents cases against President-elect Donald Trump that required the cases to be dismissed in court proceedings on Monday.

Trump has said he would fire Smith when he takes office again, shattering previous norms around special counsel investigations.

“The (Justice) Department’s position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is indicted,” Smith wrote in a six-page filing with U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, DC, regarding the election tampering case. . “This finding is not based on the merits or the strength of the case against the defendant.”

Smith’s criminal pursuit of Trump over the past two years for trying to undermine the 2020 presidential election and his mishandling of classified documents represented an extraordinarily unique chapter in American history: Never before has a former White House occupant faced federal criminal charges.

Although the election tampering case culminated in a landmark Supreme Court ruling this summer that said Trump enjoyed some presidential immunity from prosecution, Trump’s strategy of delaying the case ensured that a trial never got underway before the November election.

In the election case Trump faced in Washington, DC, Smith accused the then-former president of his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss.

“The government’s position on the merits of the defendant’s prosecution has not changed,” Smith said in the filing.

Chutkan had decided how much of Trump’s conduct at the center of the case is protected by immunity after prosecutors presented their arguments last month why the Supreme Court’s ruling should have no bearing on the case. After Trump won re-election earlier this month, prosecutors asked Chutkan to put a series of post-election deadlines on hold in the case while they considered their next steps.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges in both cases.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung, in a statement, called the move “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,” Cheung added.

As president, Trump will not have the authority to interfere in the prosecutions brought against him by state authorities in Georgia and New York. However, the courts in these cases will still have to resolve immunity issues and issues raised by his return to the White House.

Last week, the judge overseeing Trump’s criminal trial in New York postponed his sentencing indefinitely. A state jury convicted Trump earlier this year of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a hush-hush payment made during the 2016 campaign to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who alleged a past affair with the president-elect. (Trump denies the affair.)

And Trump is still working to stave off prosecution in Georgia, where he is charged in a sprawling RICO case that accuses him and several allies of trying to overturn his 2020 election loss in the Peach State.

This story has been updated with additional information.