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The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a request from Special Counsel Jack Smith to drop President-elect Donald Trump’s Florida case, ending the battle to charge him over retaining records with classified markings after leaving office.
The fight to prosecute President-elect Donald Trump for allegedly keeping records with classified markings after leaving office came to an end on Tuesday when the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals granted special counsel Jack Smith’s request to dismiss the case involving the Florida documents.
Although the case will still go forward for Trump’s two co-defendants, valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago property manager Carlos de Oliveira, the order satisfies Smith’s request to terminate an appeal in the case as it concerns Trump.
In both cases, Smith cited Trump’s upcoming inauguration and Department of Justice guidelines that prohibit the prosecution of sitting presidents. Smith also moved to dismiss Trump’s election meddling case without prejudice.
Smith was contesting Judge Aileen Cannon’s decision to dismiss the case in the classified materials case, which found that the special counsel had been appointed illegally.
Liberals clung to hope that the appeal would be successful, claiming that Judge Cannon’s decision counters 50 years of prior rulings regarding special counsel regulations, and the court has previously reversed one of her decisions.
“Nonetheless, it brings to an end for Trump a serious case focused largely on his conduct after leaving the White House. It was potentially the stronger of Smith’s two cases after a Supreme Court ruling that determined former presidents retain broad immunity for their conduct while in office. Prosecutors brought both Espionage Act and obstruction of justice charges against Trump after he repeatedly refused requests to return White House records, including defying a subpoena,” The Hill reported.
Jack Smith’s investigations into Trump over the last two years have likely cost U.S. taxpayers more than $50 million, per reports
— Martin Walsh (@martinwalsh__) November 26, 2024
Trump reportedly has a plan in place to fire the entire team of Jack Smith, including the prosecutor himself, and investigate the results of the previous election in which he was defeated by President Joe Biden.
The president-elect plans to even get rid of the career attorneys who are typically protected from political retribution, The Washington Post reported.
Trump “wants to clean out ‘the bad guys, the people who went after me,’” a source close to the president-elect said.
The special prosecutor’s team consists of dozens of attorneys, FBI agents, and staff who were likely assigned to the cases and did not choose to be on his team, the report said.
“President Trump campaigned on firing rogue bureaucrats who have engaged in the illegal weaponization of our American justice system, and the American people can expect he will deliver on that promise,” Karoline Leavitt, the press secretary for the president-elect, said to The Post.
“House Republicans previously told Justice Department officials that anyone who had worked on the Trump cases with Smith should preserve all of their communications in a move that signaled that Smith, among others, could be targeted by congressional investigators,” the report said.
“Trump also apparently plans to use the DOJ to investigate the 2020 election in which he lost to President Joe Biden but has continued to claim that his loss was due to widespread cheating. Many investigations have found no proof of the widespread voter fraud Trump and his GOP allies claimed,” it said.
Smith is likely to step down from his position after ending his cases against President-elect Donald Trump, according to reports.
A Justice Department source told CNN that Smith is in talks with DOJ leaders about how best to wind down the Jan. 6 case as well as an appeal of U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon’s ruling over the summer to throw out his classified documents case against the soon-to-be 47th president.
“Trump has threatened to fire Smith, but Smith expects to be gone before Trump takes office,” CNN reported.
“The talks between Smith and DOJ leaders extend beyond Trump’s criminal cases to questions about what to do with other defendants in the classified documents case as well as the special counsel’s office and what happens to its budget and staff,” the outlet continued.
Smith is required to submit a report on his work to Attorney General Merrick Garland. It remains unclear whether the timing of Smith’s departure will be affected if the report needs to be reviewed and approved by the intelligence community, according to sources familiar with the discussions, CNN said.
Smith is working to finalize the report before Trump takes office, as Garland will need to approve it and decide whether any part of it will be released publicly, one source said. The New York Times was the first to report Smith’s plans to resign from his post.
As president, Trump is afforded protections against prosecution that he didn’t have as a private citizen. Longstanding Justice Department policy dictates that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted for crimes, and a Supreme Court ruling this summer confirmed that Trump has “absolute” immunity from prosecution for actions taken within his core constitutional powers as president, CNN said.
Before his departure, Smith will need to determine how to resolve the two criminal cases he initiated against Trump. In Florida, Smith has appealed Cannon’s decision to dismiss the classified documents case, which found that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed as special counsel and that the funding for his office also violated the law.
In Washington, D.C., Smith’s team is moving forward with the criminal case accusing Trump of orchestrating a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election following the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity, CNN noted.
