By Brendan Scanland
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, special counsel Jack Smith dropped two federal cases against President-elect Donald Trump, marking the end of landmark federal prosecutions against the former president.
These two cases were historically significant because never before had a former occupant of the White House faced federal criminal charges.
Smith asked a federal judge in Washington, D.C. Monday to formally dismiss the indictment charging President-elect Donald Trump with plotting to subvert the 2020 election. Shortly after, Smith made a similar filing to an appeals court in Atlanta, essentially ending his fight to reinstate classified document charges against Trump.
In that case, Smith brought charges accusing the former president of illegally retaining classified documents at Mar-a-Lago after he left office.
“Legally, many analysts considered the classified documents case to be the strongest one that the government was pursuing against President Trump. With that one now being shelved, it seems like the worst of Trump’s legal headaches are behind him,” said Michael Dimino, Professor of Law at Widener University Commonwealth Law School.
In the documents case, however, prosecutors said they intend to continue prosecuting Trump’s two co-defendants: Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira. Both work for Trump and have pleaded not guilty.
The move to dismiss the federal cases is not a major surprise for legal analysts and experts. It is Department of Justice policy that sitting presidents may not be prosecuted.
“It was more or less a foregone conclusion that sooner or later these charges would be dropped,” said Dimino. “It’s almost inconceivable that a Justice Department, led by appointees of President Trump would continue to pursue these charges. The only question was whether Jack Smith or Attorney General Garland would drop the charges before Inauguration Day or whether they’d wait until afterwards. It seems that they’ve seen the writing on the wall and decided to dismiss the charges now,” Dimino added.
Returning to the White House essentially means the President-elect is in the clear when it comes to federal charges. However, state and local prosecutions are a different story.
“The president does not have control over the prosecutions that arise from states or localities. A state attorney general or a district attorney in any county throughout the state isn’t affected by President Trump having won the election,” said Dimino. “Those cases are not going to be automatically dismissed the way that the federal prosecution was bound to be dismissed once President Trump won the presidential election.”
Lower courts will have to work out immunity-related questions and issues now that Trump is heading back to the White House.
Last week, the judge in Trump’s New York hush money case postponed his sentencing indefinitely. On May 30, a New York jury found Trump guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records.