OAN Staff Abril Elfi
5:48 PM – Tuesday, November 6, 2024
Special Counsel Jack Smith is set to evaluate how to wind down President-elect Donald Trump’s two federal cases following his presidential election victory.
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Trump is currently facing charges related to alleged actions leading up to January 6th, and for purportedly retaining classified documents in his Florida estate.
Even though Democrat officials have already claimed that the new Justice Department under the Trump administration would eventually withdraw the charges against Trump, Smith’s team is now reportedly discussing pulling back in the cases ahead of the inauguration anyways.
The decision was made while his team was considering a memo from the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), which cautioned against charging a sitting president with a crime.
“The Department concluded that the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions,” the OLC, which helps craft the department’s policies, determined in a 1973 memo.
According to sources familiar with the circumstance, the Trump legal team is giving Smith “breathing room” in the hopes he will toss the cases without the president-elect forcing his hand.
“The American people have re-elected President Trump with an overwhelming mandate to Make America Great Again. 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,” Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement.
Smith has brought Espionage Act charges against Trump in Florida for allegedly mishandling classified documents and impeding the government’s attempts to retrieve them, as well as in Washington, D.C., for allegedly conspiring to tamper with the results of the 2020 election.
Trump postponed both cases until after the election by entering a not guilty plea and implementing a thorough legal strategy. Smith has also been contesting a federal judge’s decision to dismiss the documents case for months.
The federal election case was still rife with disputes over Trump’s immunity from prosecution as a former president.
He stated last month that he intended to fire Smith “within two seconds” of taking office.
“He’ll be one of the first things addressed,” Trump said at the time.
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