President-elect Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Special counsel Jack Smith asked a Federal Judge on Monday (November 25, 2024) to dismiss the case accusing President-elect Donald Trump of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, citing longstanding Justice Department policy shielding presidents from prosecution while in office.

The move announced in court papers marks the end of the Justice Department’s landmark effort to hold Mr. Trump accountable for what prosecutors called a criminal conspiracy to cling to power in the run-up to his supporters’ attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

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Justice Department prosecutors, citing longstanding department guidance that a sitting President cannot be prosecuted, said the department’s position is that “the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated”.

“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,” the prosecutors wrote in Monday’s court filing.

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The decision was expected after Mr. Smith’s team began assessing how to wind down both the 2020 election interference case and the separate classified documents case in the wake of Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris.

The Justice Department believes Mr. Trump can no longer be tried following longstanding policy that says sitting Presidents cannot be prosecuted.

Mr. Trump has cast both cases as politically motivated, and had vowed to fire Smith as soon as he takes office in January.

The 2020 election case brought last year was once seen as one of the most serious legal threats facing the Republican as he vied to reclaim the White House. But it quickly stalled amid legal fighting over Trump’s sweeping claims of immunity from prosecution for acts he took while in the White House.

The U.S. Supreme Court in July ruled for the first time that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, and sent the case back to US District Judge Tanya Chutkan to determine which allegations in the indictment, if any, could proceed to trial.

The case was just beginning to pick up steam again in the trial court in the weeks leading up this year’s election. Smith’s team in October filed a lengthy brief laying out new evidence they planned to use against him at trial, accusing him of using “resorting to crimes” in an increasingly desperate effort to overturn the will over voters after he lost to President Joe Biden.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump.
| Photo Credit: AP

The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case made public Friday a heavily redacted trove of documents that provide a small glimpse into the evidence prosecutors will present if the case ever goes to trial.

The nearly 1,900 pages of documents collected by special counsel Jack Smith’s team were initially filed under seal to help U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan decide what allegations can proceed to trial following the Supreme Court opinion in July that conferred broad immunity on former presidents for official acts they take in office.

The information that could be seen in the redacted version released Friday appeared to be material that for the most part had already been made public, including screenshots of Trump social media posts about the 2020 election and a transcript of the video statement he made on January 6, 2021 in, which he told the rioters attacking the Capitol to go home, but added: “we love you” and “you’re very special.”

The overwhelming majority of the pages released Friday were whited-out. The redacted files are believed to include things like transcripts of grand jury testimony, which remain under wraps because of grand jury secrecy rules.

Other information visible to the public includes passages from former Vice President Mike Pence’s book, excerpts of testimony provided by several witnesses to the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6 riot and a transcript of Trump’s phone call pressuring Georgia election officials to “find” enough votes to reverse his election loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.

Other documents include fundraising emails from Trump’s 2020 campaign and Pence’s letter telling Congress on January 6 that he could not claim “unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”

The filing was submitted as a series of appendices to a 165-page brief unsealed this month in which prosecutors disclosed new evidence against Trump to support their argument that the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution.

Trump’s lawyers objected to the unsealing of the filing so close to next month’s presidential election, but Chutkan on Thursday rejected their bid to postpone the material from becoming public until after the election. She said it would be inappropriate to take the political calendar into account.