The Justice Department will press on with its two criminal cases against Donald Trump past the election even if the Republican wins in November.
Lawyers in the DOJ believe a department policy against criminally charging a sitting president doesn’t prohibit them from pursuing cases against a president-elect, according to The Washington Post. That would mean special counsel Jack Smith would have until Trump’s hypothetical inauguration on Jan. 20 to keep the proceedings rolling.
A source familiar with Smith’s thinking separately said Smith believes Justice Department regulations mean his mandate as special counsel and his authority to pursue the cases will continue until he’s formally removed from his post, according to The New York Times.
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That means Trump, theoretically, could stand trial between winning the election in November and returning to the White House two months later. The timing of when the trials will actually arrive is massively consequential as, if Trump wins the election, he could appoint an attorney general who would seek to have the federal cases dropped.
He could also possibly try to pardon himself in the federal cases. In one, Trump is charged with mishandling classified documents after leaving office and then blocking the government’s efforts to collect them. The other federal case relates to his alleged plotting to overturn the result of the 2020 election.
Reports that Smith would continue to pursue the cases past Election Day come after the U.S. Supreme Court this week ruled that presidents have immunity for official acts. The ruling will likely delay any trial in the election subversion case until after the national vote in November.
Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the classified documents case, has also repeatedly delayed that trail from opening.
Trump is separately facing a state-level election interference case in Georgia. Those proceedings were stalled last month until at least October after an appeals court agreed to consider whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should have been allowed to stay on the case in light of allegations around her romantic relationship with her special prosecutor Nathan Wade, who also worked on the case.
The Supreme Court ruling similarly gave Trump a boost in his New York hush money case, with Manhattan prosecutors agreeing Tuesday that the former president’s sentencing should be delayed while a judge considers how the high court’s ruling affects Trump’s recent criminal conviction.
