Ex-prosecutor offers 'one point of light amid the darkness' in Trump criminal case
Donald Trump winning the presidency eliminated almost all of his criminal legal concerns, but there is "one point of light amid the darkness," according to a legal expert.
Former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner recently lamented that special counsel Jack Smith dropped all federal charges against the former and incoming president.
"In what feels to many of us like a crushing blow to justice, special counsel Jack Smith on Monday moved to dismiss both of President-elect Donald Trump’s federal criminal prosecutions — the 2020 election subversion case in Washington, D.C., and the classified documents/obstruction of justice/espionage case in Florida. Judge Tanya Chutkan promptly dismissed the D.C. case, and a dismissal of the documents case almost certainly will soon follow," Kirschner wrote in a column for MSNBC on Wednesday. "These democracy-busting developments make clear that, at least for the four years a president is in office, he is above the law — the functional equivalent of a king."
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Kirschner further notes that the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel is "of the opinion that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted," so "Smith was compelled to dismiss Trump’s cases."
"So where does that leave us? It’s worth remembering that the allegations in the Trump D.C. indictment include five areas of alleged criminality: the baseless, bad-faith court challenges to the 2020 election results filed by Trump’s lawyers; Trump’s pressure campaign on state elected officials (recall Trump’s recorded request to 'find 11,780 votes'); the fake elector scheme; Trump’s pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify Biden’s election win; and, when all else failed, a call to his supporters on Jan. 6 to march to the U.S. Capitol, 'fight like hell' or 'you won’t have a country anymore,' and 'stop the steal,' a not-so-thinly-veiled command to stop the certification of the election results," the legal expert wrote before highlighting a bright spot to him.
"Is there any hope for accountability of Trump in the future? I fear the answer is... not much," he added. "But there is one point of light amid the darkness. There are two ways for a judge to dismiss a criminal case: 'with prejudice' or 'without prejudice.' With prejudice means that a case can never be re-brought and prosecuted in the future. Without prejudice means the case can be re-indicted and prosecuted in the future. Smith asked Chutkan to dismiss the case 'without prejudice,' and she did so."