Special counsel Jack Smith plans to continue his two criminal cases against former President Donald J. Trump throughout the election and even into Inauguration Day if Mr. Trump wins the presidential race, according to a person familiar with Mr. Smith’s thinking is familiar.
Mr. Smith believes that under Justice Department rules, his mandate as special counsel and his authority to pursue the cases are not dependent on a change in administration and last until he is formally removed from his post, the person said.
In practice, that means the special counsel’s office is prepared to press ahead with the two indictments it has filed against Mr. Trump for as long as possible. One of them, delivered in Washington, accused the former president of plotting to undermine the 2020 election. The other lawsuit, filed in Florida, accuses Mr. Trump of preserving a trove of highly sensitive classified documents after he left office and then obstructing the government’s repeated efforts to recover them.
Mr. Smith’s decision to pursue the cases, previously reported by The Washington Post, is a landmark Supreme Court ruling on executive immunity this week that effectively postponed the election interference case until after voters vote in November.
At the same time, Judge Aileen M. Cannon, who is presiding over the confidential documents case in Florida, has declined to set a trial date as she grapples with an ever-growing constellation of legal issues and court hearings.
A spokesman for Mr Smith declined to comment on his plans for the two cases.
It is not unusual for a special prosecutor like Mr. Smith to want to continue prosecuting cases under his leadership even after a change in presidential administration. The Justice Department’s rules on special prosecutors give prosecutors like him day-to-day independence from the attorneys general who appointed them.
Special Counsel John H. Durham, for example, was appointed during the Trump administration by Attorney General William P. Barr to investigate the Justice Department’s investigation into ties between Russia and Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland then allowed Mr. Durham to continue his work long after Mr. Barr and Mr. Trump were no longer in office.
Similarly, one of Mr. Smith’s deputies told Judge Cannon in March that even if a trial were held a month or two before Election Day, it would not violate the Justice Department’s policy against holding trials too close to an election – a provision , known as the 60-day rule.
Rep. Jay I. Bratt claimed that the policy barred federal prosecutors from filing new charges immediately before an election but did not stop them from moving forward with an indictment that had already been filed.
Still, enormous attention is focused on the question of when Trump’s federal cases might finally go to trial, especially because he could order them dropped if they are delayed until after the election and he retakes the White House.
While Justice Department lawyers believe they have the authority to bring criminal charges against a president-elect, that prospect would push the cases into uncharted legal territory and would almost certainly trigger significant pushback from Mr. Trump.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers would undoubtedly try to delay the proceedings, perhaps until he was no longer in office. Ultimately, decisions on such motions would be made by the judges overseeing the cases — Judge Cannon in Florida and Judge Tanya S. Chutkan in Washington.
Prosecutors across the country have faced the challenge of taking responsibility for Mr. Trump.
The case filed against Mr. Trump in Georgia to subvert the state’s election was put on hold for months after an appeals court there decided to consider whether Fani T. Willis, the Fulton County district attorney who filed the lawsuit, had a conflict of interest romantic relationship she had with one of her deputies.
And on Tuesday, prosecutors in Manhattan agreed to delay Mr. Trump’s sentencing on his 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign.
The verdict was originally scheduled for July 11, but Trump’s lawyers called for a postponement as they challenge the guilty verdicts based on the Supreme Court’s ruling on executive immunity.
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2024-07-03 01:58:23
www.nytimes.com
