Prosecutors have asked the court to dismiss the criminal case against President-elect Donald Trump on charges that he tried to change his defeat in the 2020 elections.
The prosecutors, who are working with the special prosecutor in the case against Trump, Jack Smith, in the request to the court referred to the fact that Trump is returning to the White House, after winning this year’s elections, and the decades-long policy of the Department of Justice that current presidents should not be prosecuted.
The request represents a major turnaround for the special prosecutor who succeeded in bringing two indictments against Trump, in two separate cases in which he was accused of criminal acts of endangering election integrity and US national security.
It also shows how Trump’s victory over US Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris was a political and legal triumph, Reuters reports.
In August 2023, Trump pleaded not guilty to four counts of a federal indictment charging him with attempting to obstruct the confirmation of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory.
When Trump takes office, it was expected that he would order the Justice Department to end the election tampering process, as well as the special prosecutor’s attempts to revive the second case against the newly elected president due to the illegal retention of classified documents after the end of his first term.
A federal court judge in Florida dismissed that case against Trump.
According to the policy of the Secretariat of Justice, which dates back to the 1970s, criminal prosecution of the current president would be a violation of the Constitution for undermining the capacity of the country’s leader to perform his duties.
Washington District Court Judge Tanya Chatkan has yet to rule on prosecutors’ request to dismiss the election tampering case.
Trump’s lawyers had previously announced they would seek to dismiss the charges against Trump, based on a Supreme Court ruling in July that former presidents have immunity from prosecution for actions taken in the course of their official duties.
After the decision of the highest court in the country, the special prosecutor tried to save the case by dropping some counts of the indictment, but claimed that the others were not covered by the decision on presidential immunity and that Trump could be tried on them.
Chatkan had to decide whether to dismiss the other counts of the indictment because of the immunity decision.
The indictment against Trump for subverting the election came after Smith’s investigation into Trump’s attempts to stay in office after his defeat in 2020, which culminated in an attack by Trump supporters on the Capitol in 2021.
Trump has denied the allegations and argued that the judiciary was instrumentalized to damage his presidential campaign, during which he announced that he would fire the special counsel if he won.
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Source: www.vijesti.me
