Democratic New York Rep. Dan Goldman lamented that President-elect Donald Trump is allegedly “above the law” Monday in response to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s dismissal of the election interference case against the president-elect.
Smith filed a motion Monday to dismiss a four-count criminal indictment alleging that Trump engaged in conspiracy in an attempt to overthrow the 2020 presidential election results in the lead up of events on Jan. 6, 2021, arguing that the Department of Justice (DOJ) has a longstanding position of not indicting sitting presidents. Goldman, a major critic of the president-elect, told CNN’s Boris Sanchez that the decision is a “shame for justice” as Trump will allegedly “escape all accountability.”
“I certainly understand why [Smith] did it given the Department of Justice’s policy that you cannot prosecute a sitting president, I think it is a shame for justice in this country,” Goldman said. “It establishes that Donald Trump is above the law, the Supreme Court put him above the law in that opinion that [CNN’s Paula Reid] just mentioned, but now he appears to escape full accountability for what were crimes charged by a grand jury. And I would just add one other thing that we ought to pay close attention to, we cannot normalize the fact that Donald Trump as the president-elect should not be held accountable for crimes that he committed before. If he were to have fired the special counsel, that would be a gross abdication of the independence of the Department of Justice.”
Smith charged Trump in August 2023 with “conspiracy to defraud the United States,” “conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 proceedings” and a “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.” The Supreme Court reviewed the case at the request of Trump’s legal team, who argued that the then-presidential candidate held absolute immunity for official acts taken while in office.
The Supreme Court ruled in July that presidents are “entitled to immunity” for “official acts” taken while in office, leading Smith to file a trimmed down superseding indictment to include instances where Trump allegedly acted outside of his official duties.
Smith further charged Trump in June 2023 with over 30 counts for the alleged unlawful storage of classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. He appealed Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of the case in July, in which she argued that Smith’s appointment was unlawful.
Immediately following Trump’s election victory, Smith was in “active talks” with officials at the DOJ about dismissing both of his cases against the president-elect. He requested that Judge Tanya Chutkan pause all deadlines regarding the election interference case to allow prosecutors to evaluate their next steps, which had been granted.
A Manhattan jury convicted the now-president-elect on 34 counts for allegedly falsifying business records to keep a $130,000 hush money payment to former porn actress Stormy Daniels undisclosed ahead of the 2016 election. Judge Juan Merchan, who is overseeing the case, indefinitely suspended Trump’s sentencing date set for Nov. 26 and has allowed the defense team to file a motion to dismiss the case by Dec. 2.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis charged Trump in August 2023 over his alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia, which had been left on hold in order for an appeals court to review whether she should be disqualified from the case over her previously undisclosed relationship with special prosecutor Nathan Wade. The Court of Appeals of the State of Georgia recently canceled the oral arguments scheduled for Dec. 5 concerning the possible disqualification of Willis.
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