A motion has been filed to drop the charges against Donald Trump of seeking to overturn the 2020 US presidential election result.
Mr Trump was first indicted on four felonies in August 2023: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
The president-elect pleaded not guilty to all charges and the case was then put on hold for months as Mr Trump’s team argued he could not be prosecuted.
Special Counsel Jack Smith. Pic: Reuters
On Monday, prosecutors working with special counsel Jack Smith, who had led the investigation, asked a federal judge to dismiss the case.
Mr Smith quoted a longstanding US justice department policy, dating back to the 1970s, that presidents cannot be prosecuted while in office.
It marks the end of the department’s landmark effort to hold Mr Trump accountable for the attack on the US Capitol on 6 January, 2021.
In court papers, prosecutors said “the [US] Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”
They said the ban “is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind.”
Mr Trump, who has said he will sack Mr Smith as soon as he takes office in January, has long dismissed both the 2020 election interference case and the separate classified documents case, as politically motivated.
He was accused of illegally keeping classified documents after leaving office in 2021, some of which were allegedly found in his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.
The case stalled after the US Supreme Court ruled in July that former presidents have broad immunity from prosecution, something Mr Trump’s lawyers exploited to demand the charges against be dismissed.
Earlier this month, Mr Trump defeated Democrat candidate and Kamala Harris, the US vice president, to reclaim the White House, effectively killing any chance of success for the case.
Mr Smith’s request to drop the case still has to be approved by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan.
No date had been set for a trial.
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