An appeals court on Tuesday agreed to dismiss charges related to Donald Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents, effectively ending Special Counsel Jack Smith's prosecution of Trump.
Smith's office on Monday sought to dismiss charges, first made in June 2023, against Trump on allegations that he willfully retained national defense information after he left office and that he directed the deletion of security video at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
The special counsel's office had also filed Monday to dismiss charges against Trump for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, which U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan granted on Monday.
A Trump attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling on Tuesday evening. A spokesperson for Smith’s office declined to comment.
U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had initially dismissed the documents case against Trump in July on the grounds that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was illegal. Federal prosecutors in August had asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit to restore the case.
The conclusion of those cases — two of four criminal cases against Trump — had been expected once Trump was re-elected due to long-standing Justice Department policy that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted. NBC News reported last week that Smith and his team had planned to resign before Trump's inauguration. He is expected to file a formal report on his charges before stepping down.
The two remaining criminal cases, the New York case involving hush money payments and a Georgia election interference case, are also in limbo.
The president-elect’s attorneys have argued that presidential immunity protections should guard Trump against sentencing in a New York case, where he was found guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records tied to a hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
A New York judge ruled last week postponed Trump's sentencing in that case which was previously scheduled for Nov. 26.
The Georgia case, brought by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, has also been held up over conflict of interest allegations against Willis made by Trump and his allies.
Trump has continued to argue that Smith’s prosecutions were politically motivated and pleaded not guilty in both of the special counsel's cases.
"These cases, like all of the other cases I have been forced to go through, are empty and lawless, and should never have been brought," Trump wrote in a post on X on Monday. " It was a political hijacking, and a low point in the History of our Country that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds, and WON."
