Prosecutor withdraws charges against Trump for attack on Capitol and classified documents

After electoral victories, came judicial victories. Special prosecutor Jack Smith has dropped two federal charges against Donald Trump: for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election, which culminated in the attack on the Capitol, and, minutes later, for leaking classified documents. After leaving the White House to pick up and maintain the Mar-a-Lago residence.

Smith, whom Trump directly threatened to fire if he returned to power in what he considered a “witch hunt”, has come to the conclusion that despite the gravity of the events, neither process will now succeed. , because he’s a Republican. Elected President. This move, which he himself had stated a few days earlier, was widely expected because, as he acknowledged in his writings, Justice Department policy prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.

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In the Capitol attack case, prosecutors have asked District of Columbia Judge Tanya S. Chutkan to dismiss the federal charges without prejudice, leaving the door open for Trump to file charges again after his second term. the White House.

The Justice Department’s sanction “is clear and does not depend on the seriousness of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s evidence, or the merits of the charges, which the Government fully supports,” Smith said in his letter to the Justice Department. On the interpretation of the Constitution, the Government requests dismissal without prejudice to the charge.”

Prosecutor drops two federal charges that did not reach trial after multiple delays

Minutes later, Smith filed another motion with the U.S. Court of Appeals asking that Trump be excluded as a co-defendant from the appeal in the classified documents case. Judge Eileen Cannon dismissed that charge over the summer, saying Smith was illegally appointed as special prosecutor. But the case still stood due to the prosecutor’s appeal.

It thus ends two lengthy investigations that never reached trial, because their initiation was delayed by the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity and the political fallout of a presidential candidate sitting in the dock.

In the case of the attack on the Capitol, Trump was charged last year with four criminal offenses: conspiracy to defraud the government, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, conspiracy to commit obstruction of an official proceeding and conspiracy to violate civil rights.

Trump was charged with four criminal offenses in Washington and 37 other criminal offenses in Florida

In the Florida case, he faced 37 felony charges for unauthorized possession of classified files, which included sensitive national security information about nuclear threats. When authorities asked him to return the documents, he refused, leading the FBI to search Mar-a-Lago (in Palm Beach, Florida), where thousands of government documents, hundreds of which were classified, were found in various locations. Found hiding in rooms. Place of residence.

The decision comes after Manhattan Judge Juan Merchen last week postponed sentencing in the Stormy Daniels case in New York state without a new date. In that case, he had already been convicted in May of 34 crimes related to document falsification, including allegations that he paid porn actress Stormy Daniels to hush up a sex scandal in the middle of the 2016 campaign. The Georgia case for attempting to rig the other state’s 2020 elections, which has not yet begun, could be expected to reach a similar conclusion.

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