US Judge throws out Trump’s federal election interference case after prosecutors’ motion

US Judge Chutkan threw out the case that wanted to hold Trump responsible for trying to change the results of the 2020 election.

On Monday, a US judge threw out the federal criminal case against Donald Trump that accused him of trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 election. This came after prosecutors moved to drop that case and a second case against the president-elect, saying that it was against Justice Department policy to prosecute a current president.

The order from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ends the government effort to charge Trump with a crime for his actions in trying to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, which led to the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a group of his supporters on January 6, 2021.

The move came after Special Counsel Jack Smith, who was in charge of both cases, moved to throw out the election case and stop trying to bring back a different case that accused Trump of illegally keeping classified papers after his first term as president ended in 2021.

It’s a big court win for the Republican candidate for president, who won the election on November 5 and will start his new job on January 20.

The policy used by the lawyers from the Justice Department is from the 1970s. It says that charging a president with a crime while he or she is in office would be against the U.S. Constitution because it would make it impossible for the president to do his or her job. Both of the attorneys’ requests will still need to be approved by the courts.

In a statement in the election subversion case, the prosecutors said that the case has to be dropped before Trump returns to the White House because that’s what the policy says.

This decision was not made because of how strong or fair the case against the suspect was, the prosecutors said in the document.

In the documents case, prosecutors hinted that they will still ask a federal appeals court to reopen the case against two Trump associates who were accused of blocking the probe.

Someone who works for Trump called it “a major victory for the rule of law.”

Two of the charges against Trump were made by Smith, and the other two were in state courts in New York and Georgia. He was found guilty in New York, but the Georgia case, which also has to do with his efforts to change the 2020 election, is still being looked into.

Trump called the court cases a “low point in the history of our country” in a post on social media on Monday.

Smith was named by U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022. His actions are very different from those of the special prosecutor who got Trump charged with crimes that threatened the integrity of the US election and national security in two separate cases. Prosecutors agreed that the election of a president who was already facing criminal charges put the Justice Department in a position that had never been seen before.

Chutkan said that prosecutors might try to charge Trump again after he leaves office, but it would probably be hard for them to do so since the behavior that is the subject of the case happened so long ago.

After losing to Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, Trump pleaded not guilty to four federal charges in August 2023. The charges said he planned to make it impossible for votes to be counted and certified.

People thought that Trump, who will again be president and be in charge of the Justice Department, would end the federal 2020 election case and Smith’s appeal in the papers case.

Trump appointed Florida judge Aileen Cannon to the federal bench. In July, she threw out the case involving the classified papers, saying that Smith should not have been appointed as special counsel.

Smith’s office had been appealing that decision, and on Monday they said they would keep appealing as it pertains to Walt Nauta, who works for Trump, and Carlos De Oliveira, who is in charge of his Mar-a-Lago resort and was charged with Trump in the case. Trump and both Nauta and De Oliveria have said they are not guilty.

In the 2020 election case, Trump’s lawyers had said they would try to get the charges dropped because of a July ruling by the US Supreme Court that says former presidents can’t be charged for official acts they took while in office.

In every case, Trump said he wasn’t guilty and said the US justice system was working against him to hurt his bid for president. If he won the election again, he promised during the campaign that he would fire Smith.

In May, Trump was found guilty of felony charges related to paying hush money to a porn star before the 2016 election. He was the first past president to be found guilty of a crime. His sentence in that case has been put off indefinitely.

The criminal case against Trump in Georgia state court that has to do with the 2020 election has been put on hold.