Washington — On Tuesday, a federal appeals court granted special counsel Jack Smith’s request to end the case against President-elect Donald Trump stemming from his alleged mishandling of sensitive government documents, effectively concluding the historic and unprecedented case against the nation’s former and future president.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit issued a brief order granting Smith’s motion to dismiss the appeal against Trump.
On Monday, the special counsel requested the Atlanta-based court to dismiss his efforts to restart the case, citing Trump’s recent victory over Vice President Kamala Harris in the November presidential election and longstanding Justice Department protocol that prohibits prosecuting a sitting president.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who is hearing over Trump’s case, ruled earlier this year that the charges should be dropped because Smith was unjustly appointed. The special counsel appealed the ruling, but requested the 11th Circuit to dismiss it.
“The American people re-elected President Trump with a clear mandate to make America great again. “Today’s decision by the DOJ ends the unconstitutional federal cases against President Trump and is a major victory for the rule of law,”
Trump’s spokesperson, Steven Cheung, said in response to Smith’s request. “The American people and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country.”
In his brief filing with the 11th Circuit, Smith noted a separate motion to dismiss his other Trump complaint, which involves an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. The special counsel stated in a filing presented to a federal judge in Washington, D.C.,
That after consulting with the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, “the department’s position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”
Just hours after Smith filed his request, the federal judge hearing the 2020 election case agreed to drop the charges against Trump, bringing an end to the months-long prosecution of the president-elect. In the papers case, dismissing Trump’s appeal upholds the lower court’s ruling dismissing the accusations against him.
The appeal will proceed against Trump’s two co-defendants, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira, since, unlike the president-elect, “no principle of temporary immunity applies to them,” Smith ruled.
“The special counsel’s decision to proceed in this case even after dismissing it against President Trump is an unsurprising tribute to the poor judgment that led to the indictment against Mr.
De Oliveira in the first place,” John Irving, de Oliveira’s defense attorney, said in “Just because you can does not imply you should. If they want a delayed acquittal, that’s great with us.”
The lawyer for Nauta declined to comment. In June 2023, a grand jury delivered an indictment against Trump, making him the first former president facing federal prosecution.
The prosecution occurred months after FBI investigators performed a court-authorized search of Trump’s South Florida residence, Mar-a-Lago, in August 2022, recovering more than 100 classified documents that he had maintained after his first term expired in January 2021.
Following the search, Trump launched a second legal battle that resulted in the appointment of an independent arbitrator to go through the data obtained by the FBI, however the 11th Circuit ordered a stop to that examination in late 2022.
Smith was appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland in November of that year to oversee the federal investigation into Trump’s handling of sensitive government records, and he filed charges against the president-elect for illegally retaining national defense information and attempting to obstruct the Justice Department’s investigation.
Trump was accused with two Mar-a-Lago staffers, an aide named Nauta and the property manager, de Oliveira.
Trump, Nauta, and de Oliveira pled not guilty to all counts. The president-elect claimed his indictment was politically motivated and intended to hinder his candidacy for a second term.
Prosecutors used court files to expose details about how Trump allegedly kept records holding national secrets at his property, as well as how he and his co-defendants allegedly conspired to deceive federal investigators and hinder their investigation.
They featured photographs of crates of material heaped on the stage of Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom and in a restroom on the grounds. Other photographs captured by the FBI during its August 2022 search show boxes of records in a storage room inside Trump’s office, some of which prosecutors claim held extremely sensitive material, as well as personal keepsakes and other items from his presidency.
Cannon had scheduled the trial for May 20, 2024, but she postponed it several weeks before it began. The president-elect and his lawyers sought to dismiss the case against him on a variety of grounds, including claims that he was selectively pursued, that he was protected from federal prosecution by presidential immunity, and that Smith was appointed in violation of the Constitution.
Trump persuaded Cannon that the special counsel’s appointment and funding for his office were illegal, and she ordered the case to be dismissed in July.
Smith, however, appealed the verdict to the 11th Circuit. He and Trump’s lawyers also filed briefs with the court expressing their opinions on Cannon’s decision, though no date for arguments had been established. It was believed that the 11th Circuit’s ruling would eventually reach the Supreme Court.
Smith brought two cases against Trump, one of which involved papers. In Washington, he faced accusations relating to an alleged attempt to disrupt the transfer of power following the 2020 presidential election. The president-elect pled not guilty to the four counts he faced, and the case went to the Supreme Court, where Trump claimed presidential immunity protected him from prosecution.
Local prosecutors charged him in separate cases in Fulton County, Georgia, and New York City. The New York case arose from a hush-money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels following the 2016 election, and in May, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 felonies, making him the first former president convicted of a felony.
He was supposed to be sentenced last month in New York, but it was postponed.
The Fulton County case featured Trump’s claimed conspiracy to change Georgia’s 2020 election results. He pleaded not guilty to the racketeering allegations brought by District Attorney Fani Willis. However, proceedings had been suspended while a state appellate court considered whether Willis should be disqualified from the case. The impact of Trump’s election on his Fulton County prosecution is unknown.
Trump’s re-election campaign hung over his prosecutions, as it was widely assumed that if he won the presidency, his federal cases would be withdrawn.
Smith has now attempted to halt both the historic prosecutions of the former and next president.
With both cases settled, Smith is scheduled to file a final report with the attorney general, as required by special counsel regulations, and to resign from his position before Trump’s inauguration on January 20, according to two persons familiar with Smith’s preparations.
Garland has vowed to publicly release all special counsel reports completed during his term, a commitment he has upheld thus far, and he is expected to do the same for Smith’s report. Prior special counsels have spoken before Congress after presenting their reports, and Smith might do the same.
If the publication of Smith’s conclusions stalls and is delayed throughout the Trump administration, the chances of its release become extremely remote, as the president-elect has stated that he plans to nominate many of his top defense attorneys to high positions within the Justice Department.
Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who represented Trump in two federal lawsuits and in New York, are expected to become deputy attorney general and principal associate deputy attorney general, respectively, two significant positions within the Justice Department.
Trump has stated that he will pick former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi for the top position of attorney general.