Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a motion Friday to vacate all deadlines in the 2020 election interference case against President-elect Donald Trump in Washington, D.C., a widely expected move, but one that stops short of dropping the case against him completely.
The filing from Smith was widely expected following Trump’s election to a second term, and is in keeping with longstanding Department of Justice policy against bringing criminal charges against a sitting president.
While the case has not been officially dropped, it appears to be moving in that direction. Smith said Friday that his team plans to give an updated report on the official status of the case against Trump on Dec. 2.
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Donald Trump and Jack Smith (Getty Images)
The news is likely a welcome relief for Trump, who vowed to fire Smith “within two seconds” if re-elected—ridding him of both a yearlong legal foe and the criminal charges Trump faced following his loss in the 2020 election.
Smith was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump’s keeping of allegedly classified documents at his residence in Florida after leaving the White House in 2020.
Fox News reported earlier this week that the Department of Justice had been looking to wind down its criminal cases against Trump in D.C. and Florida, citing an Office of Legal Counsel memo that states it is against Department of Justice policy to investigate a sitting president for federal criminal charges, and is a violation of the separation of powers doctrine.
Smith had indicted Trump in D.C. earlier this year on charges stemming from the former president’s alleged efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.
He also brought federal charges against Trump in Florida for his handling of classified documents after leaving the White House.
Republican presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump holds up a fist at a campaign rally at the Santander Arena on November 4, 2024, in Reading, Pennsylvania. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Former Attorney General Bill Barr told Fox News Digital earlier this week that Smith should immediately halt the federal cases in both D.C. and Florida, citing DOJ policy.
While Trump still faces charges from convictions in Georgia and New York, Barr said this week that local prosecutors and judges need to move on from the “spectacle” of prosecuting the president-elect.
“Further maneuvering on these cases in the weeks ahead would serve no legitimate purpose and only distract the country and the incoming administration from the task at hand,” Barr said.
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Next week, the presiding judge in the New York case is expected to announce whether the state will proceed with felony conviction proceedings against Trump in the final months before he takes office, or whether to apply claims of presidential immunity expanded by the Supreme Court earlier this year.