Donald Trump jubilant after call to stop prosecution

A judge on Monday validated the end of the prosecution against Donald Trump for illegal attempt to reverse the results of the 2020 election, consecrating the large legal victory of the man who is now the American president-elect.

Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan followed the recommendations made hours earlier by special prosecutor Jack Smith. He also gave up pursuing Donald Trump for withholding classified documents after his departure from the White House in 2021, the other federal procedure targeting him.

Since the election of November 5, Donald Trump, who is due to take office on January 20, appeared assured of escaping these two procedures.

In the first case, in Washington, Judge Chutkan quickly validated Jack Smith’s request to cancel the proceedings, without prejudging their possible relaunch at the end of the mandate of Donald Trump, 78 years old. This recommendation is “consistent with the prosecution’s interpretation that the immunity granted to a sitting president is temporary, expiring when he ceases office,” she asserts.

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

Because if the ministry has followed since 1973, at the heart of the Watergate scandal, a constant policy 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 position of the prosecution on the merits of the proceedings against the defendant has not changed. But circumstances have changed,” explained Jack Smith.

The department concluded in deliberations with the special prosecutor’s office that its long-standing policy “applies to this situation” never before seen, he said. The former president, accused of trying to stay in power despite his defeat in 2020, was notably prosecuted for “conspiracy against American institutions”.

In the classified documents case, in Florida (southeast), Jack Smith invokes the same reasoning to abandon his appeal of the decision of federal judge Aileen Cannon, annulling 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 expenditures, therefore remains in force. The special prosecutor nevertheless maintains his appeal regarding Donald Trump’s two personal assistants at his Mar-a-Lago property.

In this case, one of four criminal proceedings against him, he was accused of having compromised national security by keeping documents, including military plans or information on nuclear weapons, in his private residence after the end of its mandate, instead of handing them over to the National Archives.

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

Donald Trump’s campaign team hailed the special prosecutor’s request as a “major victory for the rule of law”, once again denouncing a “political instrumentalization of the judicial system”. “These lawsuits, like all those that have been inflicted on me, are empty and unjust and should never have been brought,” reacted Donald Trump on his Truth Social network.

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

But Judge Juan Merchan, who has already postponed the sentencing several times, authorized the president-elect’s lawyers to present an appeal for annulment of the proceedings by December 2. Donald Trump is also indicted with 14 other people in the state of Georgia (southeast) for facts similar to those in his federal case in Washington. But this matter is permanently stalled in a request for dismissal from the prosecutor, currently on appeal.