Trump Drops Charges for Interfering in 2020 Election

A judge has validated Monday the end of the prosecution of Donald Trump for illegally attempting to reverse the results of the 2020 election, consecrating the large legal victory of the one who is due to ;now the American president-elect.

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan followed the recommendations made a few hours earlier by Special Counsel Jack Smith.

He also dropped his prosecution of Donald Trump for withholding classified documents after he left the White House in 2021, the other federal procedure targeting him.

Since the November 5 election, Donald Trump, who is set to take office on January 20, had appeared certain to escape both proceedings.

In the first case, in Washington, Judge Chutkan quickly upheld Jack Smith's request to dismiss the charges, without prejudging whether they could be revived at the end of Donald Trump's term, aged 78.

This recommendation is “consistent with the prosecution's interpretation that the immunity granted to a sitting president is temporary, expiring when he leaves office,” she said.

Jack Smith had already had all deadlines in both cases waived, giving himself until December 2 to “analyze this unprecedented situation and determine the course of action to follow in accordance with the Department of Justice's policy.” Justice”.

Because while the department has followed a consistent policy since 1973, at the heart of the Watergate scandal, of not prosecuting a sitting president, the case of a candidate criminally charged and then elected president of the United States is completely unprecedented.

“The prosecution's position on the merits of the prosecution of the defendant has not changed. But the circumstances have changed,” explained Jack Smith.

The department concluded during deliberations with the special counsel's office that its long-standing policy “applies to this situation” which has never been seen before, he indicated.

Former President Trump, accused of having tried to stay in power despite his defeat in 2020, was notably prosecuted for “conspiracy against the institutions American”.

– Found guilty in New York –

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In the Florida (southeast) classified documents case, Jack Smith invokes the same reasoning to abandon his appeal of the decision of the federal judge Aileen Cannon, canceling the procedure.

This decision of July 15, on the grounds that the appointment of the special prosecutor in this case and the financing of his work violated the sections of the Constitution relating to appointments and expenses, therefore remains in force.

Undated photo provided by the U.S. Justice Department of boxes of documents at former President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago, Fla., home © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA – Handout

The special counsel is still pushing for an appeal regarding Trump's two personal assistants at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

In the case, one of four criminal proceedings against him, he was accused of compromising national security by keeping documents, including military plans and information on nuclear weapons, in his private residence after his term ended, instead of handing them over to the National Archives.

Back in the White House, Donald Trump could have either appointed a new attorney general who would have dismissed Jack Smith or simply ordered his Justice Department to drop the charges.

Donald Trump's campaign team hailed the special counsel's request as a “major victory for the rule of law,” denouncing once again a “political manipulation of the justice system.”

“These charges, like all those that have been inflicted on me, are empty and unjust and should never have been engaged,” Donald Trump reacted on his Truth Social network.

Found guilty on May 30 by the New York State justice system of “aggravated false accounting to conceal a conspiracy to pervert the 2016 election” – concealed payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels as a price for her silence – he could still be sentenced in the coming weeks.

But Judge Juan Merchan, who has already postponed sentencing several times, has authorized the president-elect's lawyers to file an appeal to have the proceedings annulled by December 2.

Donald Trump is also indicted with 14 other people in the southeastern state of Georgia for facts similar to those in his federal case in Washington. But this case is permanently becalmed in a request for the prosecutor to relinquish jurisdiction, currently under appeal.

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