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US special counsel Jack Smith moves to drop criminal cases against Donald Trump

Published

1 year ago

November 25, 2024

US special counsel Jack Smith moves to drop criminal cases against Donald Trump

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The US Department of Justice is seeking to drop two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump, abandoning its historic attempts to prosecute the former president after voters sent him back to the White House for another term.

Special counsel Jack Smith, who was appointed to oversee DoJ investigations involving the former president, said in a court filing in Washington on Monday that a case accusing Trump of interfering with the 2020 election must be dismissed before his inauguration in January. He cited a long-standing DoJ policy against indicting and prosecuting a sitting president.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the government stands fully behind,” Smith wrote.

Smith’s office cited the same policy in a filing with a US appellate court seeking to end proceedings against Trump in a separate case over the retention of classified documents. That case had already been dismissed by a federal judge, and Smith had appealed against the dismissal.

Trump wrote on X: “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.”

He added: “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.”

The filing in the election interference case seeks dismissal “without prejudice”, meaning the case may be refiled at a later stage.

For now, the requests will sound the death knell for what has been an unprecedented effort to prosecute an ex-president, in two separate cases, for alleged crimes at the core of America’s democratic system of government.

The DoJ indictment that last year accused Trump of mishandling classified documents made him the first former US president to face federal criminal charges. It was quickly followed by the election interference case, which focused on the events between the 2020 election and January 6 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters stormed the Capitol.

Some Democrats had hoped the legal challenges — which also included two separate criminal cases in state courts — would dent Trump’s popularity leading up to the 2024 polls, but in the end they only galvanised his base.

Trump has pledged to seek retribution from individuals he believes have been wronged, and has called for the prosecution of his political opponents, including current vice-president Kamala Harris.

Since his appointment as special counsel in November 2022, Smith faced a tight timeline to obtain indictments against Trump ahead of the 2024 election. He also became a target of fierce attacks by Trump’s allies, who have accused the DoJ of unleashing a political witch hunt against the former president — claims strenuously denied by the justice department.

Only one of Trump’s criminal cases ultimately made it to trial: a New York state court proceeding over alleged “hush money” payments to a porn actor, in which he was convicted on all 34 counts. Trump’s sentencing was postponed repeatedly, however, and last week a court said the delay would be extended indefinitely as Trump returns to the White House.

Smith was one of several special counsels appointed by US attorney-general Merrick Garland to oversee politically sensitive investigations. One was named to examine President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents, while another was tasked with overseeing cases against Biden’s son Hunter. Joe Biden was never prosecuted and Hunter was charged in two cases.

Smith, a career prosecutor whose past jobs have included working at a special court at The Hague hearing Kosovo war crimes cases, acknowledged the unprecedented nature of his work in the filings on Monday.

“The government’s position on the merits of the defendant’s prosecution has not changed. But the circumstances have,” he added, citing Trump’s win in the presidential election.

Smith’s requests cite two DoJ opinions issued in 1973 and 2000, which held that prosecuting a sitting president would “unduly interfere” with the presidency.

While the classified documents appeal would be dropped against Trump, Smith noted that it would continue against two co-defendants, Trump aide Walt Nauta and a property manager at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Both have pleaded not guilty.

News

Top Drug Regulator Is Fired From the F.D.A.

Published

3 hours ago

May 16, 2026

Press Room

Top Drug Regulator Is Fired From the F.D.A.

Dr. Tracy Beth Hoeg, the Food and Drug Administration’s top drug regulator, said she was fired from the agency Friday after she declined to resign.

She said she did not know who had ordered her firing or why, nor whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. knew of her fate. The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The departure reflected the upheaval at the F.D.A., days after the resignation of Dr. Marty Makary, the agency commissioner. Dr. Makary had become a lightning rod for critics of the agency’s decisions to reject applications for rare disease drugs and to delay a report meant to supply damaging evidence about the abortion drug mifepristone. He also spent months before his departure pushing back on the White House’s requests for him to approve more flavored vapes, the reason he ultimately cited for leaving.

Dr. Hoeg’s hiring had startled public health leaders who were familiar with her track record as a vaccine skeptic, and she played a leading role in some of the agency’s most divisive efforts during her tenure. She worked on a report that purportedly linked the deaths of children and young adults to Covid vaccines, a dossier the agency has not released publicly. She was also the co-author of a document describing Mr. Kennedy’s decision to pare the recommendations for 17 childhood vaccines down to 11.

But in an interview on Friday, Dr. Hoeg said she “stuck with the science.”

“I am incredibly proud of the work we were doing,” Dr. Hoeg said, adding, “I’m glad that we didn’t give in to any pressures to approve drugs when it wasn’t appropriate.”

As the director of the agency’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, she was a political appointee in a role that had been previously occupied by career officials. An epidemiologist who was trained in the United States and Denmark, she worked on efforts to analyze drug safety and on a panel to discuss the use of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most widely prescribed class of antidepressants, during pregnancy. She also worked on efforts to reduce animal testing and was the agency’s liaison to an influential vaccine committee.

She made sure that her teams approved drugs only when the risk-benefit balance was favorable, she said.

The firing worsens the leadership vacuum at the F.D.A. and other agencies, with temporary leaders filling the role of commissioner, food chief and the head of the biologics center, which oversees vaccines and gene therapies. The roles of surgeon general and director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are also unfilled.

News

Supreme Court is death knell for Virginia’s Democratic-friendly congressional maps

Published

6 hours ago

May 16, 2026

Press Room

Supreme Court is death knell for Virginia’s Democratic-friendly congressional maps

The U.S. Supreme Court

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The U.S. Supreme Court refused Friday to allow Virginia to use a new congressional map that favored Democrats in all but one of the state’s U.S. House seats. The map was a key part of Democrats’ effort to counter the Republican redistricting wave set off by President Trump.

The new map was drawn by Democrats and approved by Virginia voters in an April referendum. But on May 8, the Supreme Court of Virginia in a 4-to-3 vote declared the referendum, and by extension the new map, null and void because lawmakers failed to follow the proper procedures to get the issue on the ballot, violating the state constitution.

Virginia Democrats and the state’s attorney general then appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, seeking to put into effect the map approved by the voters, which yields four more likely Democratic congressional seats. In their emergency application, they argued the Virginia Supreme Court was “deeply mistaken” in its decision on “critical issues of federal law with profound practical importance to the Nation.” Further, they asserted the decision “overrode the will of the people” by ordering Virginia to “conduct its election with the congressional districts that the people rejected.”

Republican legislators countered that it would be improper for the U.S. Supreme Court to wade into a purely state law controversy — especially since the Democrats had not raised any federal claims in the lower court.

Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court sided with Republicans without explanation leaving in place the state court ruling that voided the Democratic-friendly maps.

The court’s decision not to intervene was its latest in emergency requests for intervention on redistricting issues. In December, the high court OK’d Texas using a gerrymandered map that could help the GOP win five more seats in the U.S. House. In February, the court allowed California to use a voter-approved, Democratic-friendly map, adopted to offset Texas’s map. Then in March, the U.S. Supreme Court blocked the redrawing of a New York map expected to flip a Republican congressional district Democratic.

And perhaps most importantly, in April, the high court ruled that a Louisiana congressional map was a racial gerrymander and must be redrawn. That decision immediately set off a flurry of redistricting efforts, particularly in the South, where Republican legislators immediately began redrawing congressional maps to eliminate long established majority Black and Hispanic districts.

News

Explosion at Lumber Mill in Searsmont, Maine, Draws Large Emergency Response

Published

15 hours ago

May 15, 2026

Press Room

Explosion at Lumber Mill in Searsmont, Maine, Draws Large Emergency Response

An explosion and fire drew a large emergency response on Friday to a lumber mill in the Midcoast region of Maine, officials said.

The State Police and fire marshal’s investigators responded to Robbins Lumber in Searsmont, about 72 miles northeast of Portland, said Shannon Moss, a spokeswoman for the Maine Department of Public Safety.

Mike Larrivee, the director of the Waldo County Regional Communications Center, said the number of victims was unknown, cautioning that “the information we’re getting from the scene is very vague.”

“We’ve sent every resource in the county to that area, plus surrounding counties,” he said.

Footage from the scene shared by WABI-TV showed flames burning through the roof of a large structure as heavy, dark smoke billowed skyward.

The Associated Press reported that at least five people were injured, and that county officials were considering the incident a “mass casualty event.”

Catherine Robbins-Halsted, an owner and vice president at Robbins Lumber, told reporters at the scene that all of the company’s employees had been accounted for.

Gov. Janet T. Mills of Maine said on social media that she had been briefed on the situation and urged people to avoid the area.

“I ask Maine people to join me in keeping all those affected in their thoughts,” she said.

Representative Jared Golden, Democrat of Maine, said on social media that he was aware of the fire and explosion.

“As my team and I seek out more information, I am praying for the safety and well-being of first responders and everyone else on-site,” he said.

This is a developing story. Check back for updates.