Donald Trump’s Election Interference, Classified Docs Cases Dropped by DOJ | Video

Special Counsel Jack Smith has moved to drop two major federal cases against President-elect Donald Trump: the investigations into his alleged interference of the 2020 Presidential election, as well as the mishandling of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago residence.

Smith filed his decisions Monday in a six-page legal document, noting that per the constraints of the U.S. Constitution, a sitting president prosecuted — and that’s including an elected president.

“It has long been the position of the Department of the Justice that the United States Constitution forbids the federal indictment and subsequent criminal prosecution of a sitting president,” Smith wrote. “But the Department and the country have never faced the circumstance here, where a federal indictment against a private citizen has been returned by a grand jury and a criminal prosecution is already underway when the defendant is elected president.”

The filing continued: “After careful consideration, the Department has determined that OLC’s prior opinions concerning the Constitution’s prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting president apply to this situation and that as a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”

Trump was facing two federal cases, which were both brought on by the special counsel nearly a year ago. One was for his alleged meddling in the 2020 Presidential election, and the other was for the classified documents found at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home that he allegedly refused to turnover to the U.S.

The president-elect also promised to fire Smith upon his impending return to the Oval Office. Trump subsequently celebrated the news later on Monday afternoon.

“These cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought. Over $100 Million Dollars of Taxpayer Dollars has been wasted in the Democrat Party’s fight against their Political Opponent, ME. Nothing like this has ever happened in our Country before,” he wrote on Truth Social. “It was a political hijacking, and a low point in the History of our Country that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds, and WON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

During an appearance on CNN earlier on Monday, the network’s chief legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid weighed in on Smith’s move, saying he is simply following the proper protocol as it relates to the cases and Trump’s presidential status.

“This must be devastating for the special counsel, Jack Smith. He was brought in to handle these two cases, but the fact is that there is internal Justice Department guidance that says you cannot indict or prosecute a sitting president,” Reid explained. “And they had to discuss with leadership of the Justice Department, ‘Well, what do you do with a pending case against a president-elect? And a source familiar with this thinking tells me, ‘Look, Smith is a rules guy. He wants to follow the procedures, the practices of the Justice Department, which is why he is moving to dismiss this case.'”

Reid then pointed out that while it’s too little too late now, the Republican-ruled Supreme Court could have made a difference in the matter if they would have responded to Smith’s previous request to involve the panel of judges on whether or not Trump should be given immunity in the election subversion/Jan. 6 case.

“What’s interesting about this case is this is the case where the Supreme Court had to answer the question of whether the former president — at the time, former President Trump — had any immunity to shield him from some of the charges in this case, because his lawyers argued that some of the allegations were related to his official conduct,” Reid said. “And the Supreme Court took roughly seven months to weigh in on that question. Of course, they did rule that he had some immunity to protect him from prosecution.”

“But if the Supreme Court had weighed in when Jack Smith initially asked them roughly a year ago last December… It is possible that the special counsel could have had time to bring some case, depending on what would remain after the Supreme Court’s analysis,” she continued. “But the Supreme Court again waiting seven months to reveal the answer to that question, making it virtually impossible that the special counsel could bring this case. And this was really the only federal case that they could have realistically brought against Trump before the November election.”

Trump is set to be inaugurated at America’s 47th president on Jan. 20, 2025.

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