Trump criminal cases are dropped

Special counsel prosecutors dismissed the two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump in separate court filings yesterday, as they bowed to the reality that they would not be completed or proceed to trial before Trump returns to the presidency next year.

- Hugo Lowell

The withdrawals marked the end of the years-long legal battle between Trump and the special counsel, Jack Smith, and reflected the extraordinary ability of Trump to sidestep an indictment that would have sunk the presidential hopes of anyone else.

Trump's election victory was always going to spell the end of the criminal cases against him - over his retention of classified documents and his efforts to overturn the 2020 election in the lead-up to the attack on the US Capitol of 6 January 2021 - owing to justice department policy that prohibits taking criminal action against a sitting president.

But the withdrawals also showed just how successfully Trump, with help from sympathetic judges, managed to beat the justice system by using a presidential campaign and the political calendar to sidestep deeply perilous charges.

In a six-page motion to dismiss the 2020 election interference case, prosecutors said even though Trump was not yet president, they had been told by the department's office of legal counsel, which provides internal legal advice, to withdraw the case before his inauguration in January.