Federal Criminal Cases Against Trump Dropped for Now

Special counsel Jack Smith moves to drop both federal criminal cases against Trump, POLITICO

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan quickly granted the motion to dismiss Trump’s Washington D.C. case, in which he was charged with conspiring to subvert the 2020 election. A similar motion in the Florida case, in which Trump was charged with hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate, is awaiting approval from a panel of appeals court judges.

The developments formalize what was already clear the moment Trump won the 2024 election: Both federal criminal cases against him are about to end.

But Smith left open the possibility that the Justice Department might resurrect the charges after Trump finishes his second presidential term. Smith asked Chutkan to dismiss the election case “without prejudice” — a legal term that means the case could theoretically be brought again in the future.

Chutkan agreed to Smith’s request. In a two-page order, she noted that she could have gone further and barred prosecutors from ever trying to revive the case in the future — but that there was no reason to do so.

“There is no indication of prosecutorial harassment or other impropriety . . . and therefore no basis for overriding the presumption [in favor of a dismissal without prejudice] — and Defendant does not ask the court to do so,” Chutkan wrote.

The prospect of reopening either case after Trump’s term ends in January 2029 would pose many challenges. Prosecutors might run into problems with the statutes of limitations, or Trump might use his second term in office to further undermine the cases or pardon himself from the alleged crimes.

By the end of that term, the events in question of Trump’s alleged conspiracy to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory and stoke violence on Jan. 6, 2021. And his retention of national security documents the months after his first term will be roughly eight years old. Witnesses may have died, or their memories may have faded. And it’s far from clear that the Justice Department, no matter who is president in 2029, would want to revisit the cases against an ex-president who will then be 82.

There is no alleged. He did what they said he did and SCOTUS saved his butt.

Or given his diet, Trump may have died sooner than later.