Former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy said Friday that Special Counsel Jack Smith proved the prosecutions of President-elect Donald Trump were intended as political weapons.
United States District Judge Tanya Chutkan granted Smith’s request to vacate deadlines in the federal election interference case Friday. McCarthy said Trump’s victory in the Nov. 5 presidential election made the prosecutions untenable.
“They’re taking the position that the long-standing office of legal counsel guidance at the Justice Department [that] basically says that you can neither indict nor prosecute a sitting president,” McCarthy told “America Reports” co-host Sandra Smith. “They are conceding that President-elect Trump will be certified, that is, at the joint session of Congress which as we all know now, will be January 6th. His victory will be ratified, state-certified electoral votes will be ratified, he will for all intents and purposes be a sitting president as of January 20th. And they are taking the position that under those circumstances, the cases shouldn’t go forward.”
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“They could have suspended them, but I think they’re taking the position this is dismissal,” McCarthy continued. “I think that underscores that lawfare was really all about preventing Trump from winning. Now that he has won, there’s no point in it.”
Smith secured a superseding indictment against Trump in August, almost two months after the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Trump’s claims of immunity in a case stemming from a previous indictment secured by Smith over Trump’s efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Smith unsealed another superseding indictment on July 27, 2023 over allegations about Trump retaining classified materials after the special counsel initially secured a 37-count grand jury indictment against Trump and aide Walter Nauta in June 2023.
Trump still faces a potential sentencing date of Nov. 26 in Manhattan for his conviction on 34 felony counts of falsification of business records, but New York Judge Juan Merchan will rule on motions to set aside the jury verdict on Nov. 12.
“There’s a state component to lawfare as well. Judge Juan Merchan, who is the presiding judge in the so-called hush money case in Manhattan, is supposed to rule next Tuesday on Trump’s motion to vacate the guilty verdicts, including the immunity claims. So we’ll get a good read on whether the lesson has been assimilated by the end of Tuesday, when we see what Judge [Merchan] does. Because if he denies Trump’s motions, he has signaled he may try to sentence Trump by November 26. I sure hope that doesn’t happen.”
McCarthy also predicted that the indictment Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis secured against Trump and other defendants, including former Republican Mayor Rudy Giuliani of New York City and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows over efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, would collapse.
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