President-elect Donald Trump responded Monday to particular counsel Jack Smith’s transfer to dismiss the 2 felony circumstances in opposition to him.
“These circumstances, like the entire different circumstances I’ve been compelled to undergo, are empty and lawless, and may by no means have been introduced,” Trump wrote on his social media platform.
“It was a political hijacking, and a low level within the Historical past of our Nation that such a factor may have occurred, and but, I persevered, in opposition to all odds, and WON. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump added.
Vice President-elect JD Vance stated Trump may have “spent the remainder of his life in jail” had the end result of the 2024 race been completely different.
“If Donald J. Trump had misplaced an election, he could very effectively have spent the remainder of his life in jail,” Vance wrote on X. “These prosecutions had been at all times political. Now it is time to guarantee what occurred to President Trump by no means occurs on this nation once more.”
Smith, in back-to-back courtroom filings, cited the Justice Division’s “categorical” coverage that he stated bars the prosecution of a sitting president as the explanation for his request to drop the federal election interference case and the categorized paperwork case.
Later Monday, U.S. District Courtroom Choose Tanya Chutkan dismissed the federal election subversion case in opposition to the president-elect.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a press convention to ship “Trump Will Repair It” remarks, at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Seashore, Florida, Oct. 29, 2024.
Marco Bello/Reuters
Trump pleaded not responsible to 4 prices, together with conspiracy to defraud the US, introduced by Smith in reference to Trump’s alleged makes an attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. The case was plagued with delays and developments, together with a Supreme Courtroom choice {that a} president is entitled to some immunity from legal prosecution for official acts throughout their time in workplace.
Trump additionally pleaded not responsible to the 40 legal counts associated to his dealing with of categorized materials after leaving the White Home. The case was dismissed by a federal choose in Florida in July, although Smith had been interesting the choice.
Throughout his presidential marketing campaign, Trump instructed supporters he was their “retribution” and that he was “being indicted for you.”
Steven Cheung, the incoming White Home communications director, known as Smith’s choice a “main victory for the rule of regulation” and stated Individuals need Trump to finish “weaponization of our justice system.”
A few of Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill additionally celebrated the event.
“Enormous win for America, President Trump, and the combat in opposition to the weaponization of the justice system,” Home Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X. “This was ALWAYS about politics and never the regulation.”
California Democratic Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, nonetheless, stated the Justice Division and the courts “did not uphold the precept that nobody is above the regulation.”
Schiff was a member of the Home Jan. 6 Committee that spent greater than a yr investigating the Capitol assault. The panel, which voted to advocate prices in opposition to Trump, recognized Trump and his actions after the 2020 election because the “central trigger” of what transpired on Jan. 6, 2021.
“DOJ by neglecting to promptly examine the occasions of Jan 6, and the courts by willfully delaying progress of the case and offering immunity,” Schiff wrote on X. “The general public deserved higher.”
