In a petition to the responsible federal judge on Monday, Smith asked for the election manipulation proceedings in which the 78-year-old Trump was charged with, among other things, conspiracy to defraud the United States to be dropped. It was about his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat against Joe Biden through unsubstantiated allegations of fraud and his role in the storming of the Capitol by his radical supporters on January 6, 2021.
However, Smith asked federal judge Tanya Chutkan to stop the proceedings without further justification on the matter, so that there is in principle the possibility of taking up the case again after the end of Trump’s second term in 2029. The proceedings had been suspended since November 8th.
The government has not changed its position regarding the justification for the criminal proceedings, the special prosecutor appointed by the Ministry of Justice continued in his submission. “But circumstances have changed,” he wrote. “Therefore, these charges must be dropped prior to the defendant’s inauguration.”
Also citing current Justice Department practice, Smith said he would withdraw his appeal against a Florida judge’s decision to halt proceedings in the documents scandal.
Trump was indicted in federal court there on charges of illegally storing classified government files at his private Mar-a-Lago estate after his first term in office. A judge he nominated himself had ordered the discontinuation of this case earlier in the year because she considered the government’s appointment of the special investigator in this case to be unlawful.
With his comeback as US President, Trump is now likely to avoid these two federal proceedings as well as a third criminal case in the state of Georgia, which also concerns his attempts to manipulate the election. Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said the “unconstitutional federal proceedings” against Trump would now end. This is a “major victory for the rule of law.”
In a fourth trial in which Trump was found guilty in connection with a hush money payment in New York in May, the announcement of the sentence was postponed indefinitely last Friday.
Trump was found guilty by a jury in the New York trial of having covered up a $130,000 hush money payment to former porn actress Stormy Daniels by forging business documents before his 2016 election victory.
Despite the hush money, Daniels later went public and reported a sex affair with the married Trump, which he denied. The prosecution assumes that the payment was intended to improve Trump’s chances of winning the election. With the guilty verdict in New York, the 78-year-old became the first criminally convicted ex-US president in history.
His lawyers successfully tried throughout the election campaign to delay the criminal proceedings against Trump through filings and to prevent trials. They also obtained a postponement of the sentencing on several occasions in the hush money proceedings. All four cases related to actions before, during and immediately after his first term as US president (2017-2021).
The right-wing populist fundamentally denies the allegations and has repeatedly stated that his political opponents had misused the judiciary as a weapon against him. The Republican emerged from the presidential election on November 5th as the clear winner against his Democratic rival Kamala Harris.
