President-elect Donald Trump responded Monday to special counsel Jack Smith’s move to dismiss the two felony cases against him.
“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 on his social media platform.
“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. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump added.
Vice President-elect JD Vance said Trump could have “spent the rest of his life in prison” had the outcome of the 2024 race been different.
“If Donald J. Trump had lost an election, he may very well have spent the rest of his life in prison,” Vance wrote on X. “These prosecutions were always political. Now it’s time to ensure what happened to President Trump never happens in this country again.”
Smith, in back-to-back court filings, cited the Justice Department’s “categorical” policy that he said bars the prosecution of a sitting president as the reason for his request to drop the federal election interference case and the classified documents case.
Later Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed the federal election subversion case against the president-elect.
Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a press conference to deliver “Trump Will Fix It” remarks, at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, Oct. 29, 2024.
Marco Bello/Reuters
Trump pleaded not guilty to four charges, including conspiracy to defraud the United States, brought by Smith in connection with Trump’s alleged attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. The case was plagued with delays and developments, including a Supreme Court decision that a president is entitled to some immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts during their time in office.
Trump also pleaded not guilty to the 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified material after leaving the White House. The case was dismissed by a federal judge in Florida in July, though Smith had been appealing the decision.
During his presidential campaign, Trump told supporters he was their “retribution” and that he was “being indicted for you.”
Steven Cheung, the incoming White House communications director, called Smith’s decision a “major victory for the rule of law” and said Americans want Trump to end “weaponization of our justice system.”
Some of Trump’s allies on Capitol Hill also celebrated the development.
“Huge win for America, President Trump, and the fight against the weaponization of the justice system,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X. “This was ALWAYS about politics and not the law.”
California Democratic Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, however, said the Justice Department and the courts “failed to uphold the principle that no one is above the law.”
Schiff was a member of the House Jan. 6 Committee that spent more than a year investigating the Capitol attack. The panel, which voted to recommend charges against Trump, identified Trump and his actions after the 2020 election as the “central cause” of what transpired on Jan. 6, 2021.
“DOJ by neglecting to promptly investigate the events of Jan 6, and the courts by willfully delaying progress of the case and providing immunity,” Schiff wrote on X. “The public deserved better.”