Retention of classified documents | Judicial clouds clear for Trump

(Washington) Special prosecutor Jack Smith on Monday only recognized the inevitable: with his election, Donald Trump has become virtually untouchable for American federal justice, or even justice in general.

Unsurprisingly, the magistrate who is investigating two of the four criminal proceedings against Donald Trump recommended that they be stopped: that for illegal attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 election, and that for withholding classified documents after his departure from the White House.

After consultations, the Department of Justice concluded that its policy since the Watergate scandal in 1973, consisting of not prosecuting a sitting president, “applies to this unprecedented situation,” explained Jack Smith.

This conclusion “does not depend on the seriousness of the crimes involved, the strength of the prosecution’s case or the merits of the prosecution,” he added.

In the first case, in Washington, federal judge Tanya Chutkan quickly approved on Monday the cancellation of the procedure requested by the special prosecutor, without prejudging a 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.

“Of course, there might be no appetite for prosecution in 2029, but this preserves that option,” former prosecutor Barbara McQuade said on X.

The other federal case, in Florida (southeast) suffered the same fate. Jack Smith announced that he would withdraw his appeal of the decision of federal judge Aileen Cannon, canceling the procedure, a withdrawal endorsed Tuesday by a federal appeals court. This decision of July 15 therefore remains in force.

Criminal immunity

Donald Trump’s legal horizon has already brightened spectacularly this summer, with this annulment, but above all the historic judgment of the Supreme Court which recognized the 1^is July to the President of the United States a broad presumption of criminal immunity.

She thus forced Jack Smith to present a revised indictment at the end of August to demonstrate the private nature of the facts alleged against Donald Trump, which according to him are therefore not covered by criminal immunity for his “official acts”.

The Supreme Court also guaranteed de facto that he would not be tried in this case before the November 5 vote, as he wanted.

Once returned to the White House, Donald Trump could liquidate these two procedures, or even bury them definitively as a preventive measure by pardoning himself.

A final obstacle could nevertheless await him in New York before his official inauguration on January 20: the pronouncement of his sentence in the only one of his four criminal trials that his lawyers have not managed to postpone beyond 2024.

Found guilty

He was convicted on May 30 by New York State courts of “aggravated accounting falsification to conceal a conspiracy to pervert the 2016 election.”

This case concerns the payment of $130,000, disguised as legal fees, to pornographic film actress Stormy Daniels, to silence a sexual relationship in 2006, which Donald Trump denies.

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.

Not to mention that the hypothesis of a prison sentence, especially in the case of a first criminal conviction, now appears highly improbable given the insurmountable practical difficulties that his incarceration would raise, according to experts.

That leaves Georgia (southeast), where Donald Trump is charged with 14 other people with facts similar to those in his federal case in Washington. But this matter is permanently stalled at least until 2025 in a request for dismissal from the prosecutor, currently on appeal.