With Trump victory, special counsel mulls dropping cases against US president-elect
A long-standing US Justice Department policy forbids prosecuting a sitting president
Donald Trump’s US presidential election victory on Wednesday will essentially end the criminal cases brought against him, at least for the four years he occupies the White House.
US Justice Department officials on Wednesday were assessing how to wind down Special Counsel Jack Smith’s two criminal cases against the Republican president-elect, due to a long-standing policy that forbids prosecuting a sitting president, a person familiar with the matter said.
The first former US president to face criminal charges, Trump for much of this year faced four simultaneous prosecutions, over allegations ranging from his attempt to cover up a hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels during his 2016 campaign to his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat.
A New York jury in May found him guilty of falsifying business records tied to the Daniels payment, making him the first former US president convicted of a felony.
Trump told an interviewer on October 24 that he would fire Smith – who led the federal prosecutions over his attempts to overturn his election defeat and retention of classified documents after leaving office – “within two seconds” of being sworn in.
Trump pleaded not guilty to all charges and cast the prosecutions as politically motivated.
