Special counsel prosecutors dismissed the two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump in separate court filings on Monday, as they bowed to the reality that they would not be completed or proceed to trial before Trump returns to the presidency next year.
The withdrawals marked the end of the years-long legal battle between Trump and the special counsel Jack Smith, and reflected the extraordinary ability of Trump to sidestep an indictment that would have sunk the presidential bid of anyone else.
Trump’s election victory was always going to spell the end of the criminal cases against him – over Trump’s retention of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election – due to justice department policy that prohibits taking criminal action against a sitting president.
But the withdrawals also showed just how successfully Trump, with help from sympathetic judges, managed to beat the justice system with an audacious play of using a presidential campaign and the political calendar to sidestep deeply perilous charges.
In a six-page motion to dismiss the 2020 election interference case, prosecutors said even though Trump was not yet president, they had been told by the department’s office of legal counsel, which provides internal legal advice, to withdraw the case before his inauguration in January.
“It has long been the position of the Department of Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting President,” wrote Smith’s top deputy, Molly Gaston.
“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” she added.
Moments later, prosecutors told the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit that they were withdrawing their challenge against the earlier dismissal of the classified documents case with respect to Trump.
But they said they would continue trying to bring cases against Trump’s co-defendants Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira - although it was unclear whether those charges would also be dropped once Trump’s loyalist attorney general pick, Pam Bondi, takes over the justice department.
From the Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, the site of the presidential transition where Trump allegedly stashed 101 classified documents after he left office and was indicted after ignoring a subpoena for their return, Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, issued a gleeful statement on the news.
“Today’s decision by the DOJ ends the unconstitutional federal 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,” Cheung wrote.
Within days of Trump’s victory, prosecutors started examining how to shut down the 2020 election case in federal district court in Washington, and the more complicated matter of the classified documents case that was before the US court of appeals for the 11th circuit.
Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2022 under the cloud of an impending special counsel investigation into his retention of national security materials at his Mar-a-Lago club after he lost the 2020 presidential election and left the White House.
He repeatedly told supporters at rallies and in public statements that he was running for his literal freedom, urging voters to return him to the presidency in part because the charges would only disappear if he were re-elected.
Trump also vowed to pursue the prosecutors and federal investigators involved in the cases. In anticipation of an expected legal retribution effort, Smith and his top deputies are expected to resign from the justice department before Trump is inaugurated, the Guardian has reported.
For months, Trump’s overarching legal strategy was to delay the criminal cases until after Tuesday’s election – banking on the fact that if he won he could appoint a loyalist attorney general who would simply drop the prosecutions.
He was unsuccessful in delaying his New York criminal case, tied to his efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election through an unlawful hush-money scheme, and for which he was convicted on 34 felony counts. Sentencing has been postponed indefinitely.
