Inevitable and predictable. For most of the American press, special prosecutor Jack Smith only recognized it: by winning the American presidential election on Tuesday, November 5, Donald Trump became practically untouchable on a legal level.
Unsurprisingly, the magistrate responsible for investigating two of the four criminal proceedings brought against the president-elect due to his attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election and the withholding of confidential documents after his departure from the White House, has recommended, Monday, November 25, the provisional classification, which federal judge Tanya Chutkan quickly approved.
This ranking was inevitable due to the Republican candidate's promises of retaliation, CNN believes. “Even though prosecutors thought they could keep the cases on life support during Trump's second presidency, the president-elect had already expressed his intention to fire Smith and his team », observe journalists Tierney Sneed, Devan Cole and John Fritze, specialists in political-judicial issues for the channel.
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Predictable, this outcome was, according to them, due to the delaying strategy of the Republican candidate, which guaranteed that no trial could open before his election and it is this victory which ultimately “forced the hand” of the Attorney General, forced to bow due to the judicial immunity from which the president-elect will benefit upon his return to the White House on January 20, 2025. As Judge Tanya Chutkan recalled, this immunity will no longer have course once his term ends, but he is “highly unlikely that a prosecutor would attempt to bring the same charges in the future, particularly because the statute of limitations (…) will have expired by the time Trump leaves office,” en 2029, juge ABC News.
“A great victory for the rule of law”
“Donald Trump achieved this legal feat thanks to a simple and effective strategy consisting of delaying his election”adds David Graham, on the website of the cultural monthly The Atlantic. The 45e President of the United States, who will soon be the 47theunderstood “that the elements which [faisaient] the greatness of the American system [pouvaient] also be exploited in a cynical manner. When you have deep enough pockets and very few scruples, you can get away with procedural motions, appeals and stunts, so as to leave the prosecution at a standstill. And, in Trump's case, time was the key to victory, not because he was able to postpone the case indefinitely, but because he will soon be president again, with the Justice Department under his authority”he too judges, denouncing an attack on the separation of powers.
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