Donald Trump’s judicial outlook continues to clear after his victory at the polls in the presidential elections on November 5. The doctrine of the United States Department of Justice indicates as a general rule that criminal cases cannot be pursued against a sitting president. Special prosecutor Jack Smith has presented a motion to withdraw the two accusations for dozens of crimes that he maintained against the now president-elect, both for trying to steal the 2020 elections and for the case of the classified Mar-a-Lago papers.
The judge handling the Washington electoral case already took the first step a few weeks ago to abandon the process. At the request of the prosecutor, he suspended the deadlines he had planned for the procedural procedures underway. Smith accused Trump of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. The prosecutor accused the former president of four crimes: conspiracy to defraud the US Government, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction or attempted obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to violate civil rights.
After the Supreme Court ruling that granted broad immunity to Trump for acts carried out when he was president, the prosecutor managed to get a grand jury to indict the former president again using only that evidence that he considered not covered by presidential immunity. The procedure was stuck at that point, but now the prosecutor himself is asking for it to be dismissed, at least temporarily.
“As a result of the election held on November 5, 2024, the defendant, Donald J. Trump, will be inaugurated president on January 20, 2025. It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution prohibits the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting president. But the Department and the country have never faced the circumstance at hand, in which a federal indictment against a private citizen has been brought by a grand jury and a criminal trial is already underway when the defendant is elected president,” the prosecutor points out in his writing.
The Department of Justice has determined that the constitutional prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting president applies to this situation and that, therefore, this proceeding must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated. “This prohibition is categorical and does not depend on the seriousness of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s evidence or the merits of the accusation, which the Government fully supports. “Based on the interpretation of the Constitution made by the Department, the Government requests the dismissal without prejudice of the substitute accusation,” the letter indicates, referring to the possibility that the charges may be filed again in the future when Trump is not president.
In addition, Jack Smith is the prosecutor also in charge of the case of the classified papers that Trump was holding at Mar-a-Lago. The case was archived by the judge, who considered that the appointment of the special prosecutor was illegal. Smith appealed, but now that appeal, and the entire case, is also deadlocked as the prosecutor assumes that doctrine of the Department of Justice.
The other case for attempts to rig the elections, the one being followed in Atlanta, in Fulton County, for the attempted coup in the State of Georgia, will probably suffer the same fate, at least during the Republican presidency. In this case, the accusation is not federal, but state
Trump also continues to avoid conviction for the 34 crimes of which a popular jury found him guilty last May, in the Stormy Daniels case, the only one who came to trial. Judge Juan Merchan, in charge of the case, decided last week to indefinitely postpone the sentence with the sentence to be imposed on the elected president. Initially, the sentencing date was July 11. The Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity caused a first delay, until September. The judge later decided to leave the sentence until after the presidential elections and the new date was November 26. Last week it was postponed indefinitely.
The judge also agreed to the request of Trump’s defense to present a new motion to dismiss the case, giving the Republican’s lawyers a deadline to present their arguments before December 2. Trump was found guilty by a popular jury of 34 crimes of forging checks, invoices and accounting records. He intended to hide the payments of $130,000 to porn film actress Stormy Daniels—so that she would remain silent and not harm her electoral chances in the 2016 presidential elections. Falsifying business records is punishable by up to four years in prison, although the sentences for each of the crimes can be served simultaneously. In cases like Trump’s – not to mention that he is now the president-elect – it was already unlikely that the convicted person would have to go to prison. Typically, you are placed on probation or fined.
