(Matt Lamb, Headline USA) The Department of Justice will likely drop its two pending federal cases against President-elect Donald Trump, due to an internal policy not to prosecute sitting presidents.
Trump has pledged to fire special counsel Jack Smith “within 2 seconds.” A Supreme Court ruling this summer that prohibited presidents from being prosecuted for official acts already complicated the two cases, one involving the president-elect’s storage of documents and another concerning his actions on Jan. 6, 2021.
The DOJ is working to “wind down” the cases against Trump, according to NBC News. A former federal prosecutor bemoaned the collapse of the cases against Trump.
“Sensible, inevitable and unfortunate,” NBC’s Chuck Rosenberg stated, according to the news outlet.
Trump’s team is working to get the cases dismissed as well.
“The American people have re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate to Make America Great Again,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told the media.
“It is now abundantly clear that Americans want an immediate end to the weaponization of our justice system, so we can, as President Trump said in his historic speech last night, unify our country and work together for the betterment of our nation,” he added.
Other state level charges remain, including Trump’s “hush money” payments to Stormy Daniels and a nearly half-billion civil judgment brought by Attorney General Letitia James in New York. In the latter case, James accused Trump of committing fraud through the valuation of his properties, even though his lender never alleged any impropriety.
Trump still faces a state-level charge in Georgia. However, Fulton County prosecutor Fani Willis has come under scrutiny for her romantic relationship with Nathan Wade, whom her office paid to help go after Trump.
The case is facing appeals, and a hearing on whether Willis will remain on the case is set for Dec. 5.
Legal scholar Jonathan Turley said he expected all the cases to fall apart.
“After years of thrill-kill prosecutions, the thrill is gone for lawfare warriors,” he wrote recently in the New York Post.
He predicted the Georgia case was “unlikely to continue.” Turley, a George Washington University law professor also said the “hush money” case suffered from “many alleged errors.”
The lending case brought by New York Attorney General James suffered from other questionable defects; as Turley pointed out “no one lost a dime, and the alleged victim banks wanted more business with Trump and his company.”
