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“The US Department of Justice is in talks with the office of special counsel Jack Smith over winding down the two federal cases he is overseeing against president-elect Donald Trump… Last year, Mr Smith brought charges against Trump over the alleged mishandling of classified documents and his suspected role in attempting to thwart the transfer of power after the 2020 presidential election…
“But the justice department has a long-standing policy that sitting presidents cannot be prosecuted - which would apply when Trump returns to office in January. Trump said during the election campaign that he would fire Mr Smith ‘within two seconds’ if he was returned to office.” BBC
Here’s our previous coverage of the cases. The Flip Side
The left is disappointed about the end of the cases, and worries about retaliation from Trump.
“The charges included willful retention of national-security information, obstruction of justice, withholding of documents, and false statements. Trump took boxes of documents to properties, where they were stored haphazardly, but the indictment centered on his refusal to give them back to the government despite repeated requests…“Protecting the nation’s secrets is one of the greatest responsibilities of any public official with classified clearance, and not only did Trump put these documents at risk, but he also (allegedly) refused to comply with a subpoena, tried to hide the documents, and lied to the government through his attorneys.”
David A. Graham, The Atlantic
“Some blame Trump for his delay strategy. But that’s like an NBA coach blaming his opponent for trying to block all his team’s shots; that’s how the game is played. With Trump’s personal liberty at stake, his lawyers raised constitutional defenses that any semi-competent defense attorney would raise — and they won. That’s not foul play, and it’s not their ‘fault’ these cases will never see trial. They did their jobs…
“If you’re looking to cast blame, consider this: ‘Every day that passes makes a potential federal prosecution of Trump less likely to happen and more fraught for the Justice Department if it does … The debate surely will rage on about whether AG Merrick Garland has meaningfully and pragmatically set his sights on Trump. Someday, we’ll find out. No matter what happens, the delay in reaching a resolution is counterproductive and inexcusable.’…
“That’s something I wrote in May 2022 — six months before Garland appointed Smith and a year and three months before the DOJ finally got around to indicting. It should come as no surprise that the clock ran out.”
Elie Honig, New York Magazine
“[Elon Musk] posted about the special counsel who prosecuted Donald Trump, ‘Jack Smith’s abuse of the justice system cannot go unpunished.’… [Trump adviser Mike Davis said] Smith ‘should go to prison for engaging in a criminal conspiracy against President Trump.’ All of this was predictable — Trump said last month that Smith ‘should be thrown out of the country’ — but that does not make it any less chilling…
“The notion that there could be a basis for criminal charges against Smith or his team is ludicrous. Smith obtained indictments before two duly constituted federal grand juries. These cases were supervised by federal judges. There is no evidence that Smith departed from Justice guidelines and even less that he violated the law…
“Even when defendants are acquitted, that does not form a basis for going after their prosecutors through civil lawsuits, much less by bringing criminal charges or harassing them through costly criminal investigations. They were just doing their jobs… I worry not just about Smith but also about his team, the vast majority of whom are career prosecutors… Punishing these civil servants might please Trump, but it would also violate the law. The real abuse of the system, I fear, will be what comes next.”
Ruth Marcus, Washington Post
The right applauds the end of the cases, and argues that Trump should be pardoned.
The right applauds the end of the cases, and argues that Trump should be pardoned.
“The 2024 election will come to be viewed as one of the biggest political and cultural shifts in our history. It was the mainstream-media-versus-new media election; the Rogan-versus-Oprah election; the establishment-versus-a-disassociated-electorate election. It was also a thorough rejection of lawfare…
“The next few weeks will determine whether Democratic leaders are ready for a new course in ending the lawfare. President Biden could pardon Trump. It would be a poison-pill pardon. Trump does not need a pardon as the incoming president, but Biden could take the matter off the table by treating him as presumptively guilty. He could not only claim to have taken the higher ground (even though he ran on and promoted the prosecutions of Trump as legitimate) but use it as cover for pardoning his own son…
“New York Gov. Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) could also move to pardon Trump on the New York charges. Hochul was widely criticized for calling Trump supporters (now the majority of voters in the nation) ‘un-American.’ She could seek to make amends with a pardon. In the end, Trump read the jury correctly. Once the lawfare was unleashed, he focused on putting his case to the public and walked away with a clear majority decision.”
Jonathan Turley, The Hill
“Americans [last] Tuesday voted to re-elect Donald Trump, and in doing so they also rendered a verdict on the criminal prosecutions against him. They don’t think the cases are disqualifying for the White House, and that means the best result for the country would be for them to go away… Mr. Smith may want to take one last kick against Mr. Trump by issuing a summary report on all of his evidence, but this would be a provocation with nothing to gain…
“Voters understood the future of Mr. Smith’s cases was on the ballot. The country knows what happened on Jan. 6, 2021, and Mr. Smith’s recent court filings added little new information. The accusations in the second case, involving Mr. Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, are public record…
“Despite the cases against him, Americans voted to give Mr. Trump the nuclear launch codes for a second time. The Democratic strategy of using lawfare to defeat him was repudiated, and Mr. Trump deserves the ability to begin his new term with a clean legal slate.”
Editorial Board, Wall Street Journal
“[The new Attorney General] will need to thoroughly search the records of the previous administration to ensure all officials complied with the law and constitution. Obviously, the residual lawfare prosecutions will be dropped. Goodbye Jack Smith. The divisive question is: how far to go down the same, pernicious path of politically inspired prosecutions?…
“The right answer here is ‘not one step. Go only as far as the evidence demonstrates clear, provable, intentional violations of law by public officials.’ The lawfare must stop, not be replicated by the other side. The model here is the greatest attorney general of the modern era: Edward Levi, who cleaned up the mess after the Nixon years.”
Charles Lipson, Spectator World
