That former President Donald Trump won the US 2024 election is an apparent understatement because he won it resoundingly.
Vice-President, Kamala Harris who contested against apart conceding also called Trump to congratulate him.
That’s the beauty of democracy.
But what happens to the criminal cases against Trump?
The Guardian reports that the special prosecutor, Jack Smith’s case would not be finished before inauguration, after which Trump could prohibit prosecutors from pursuing it. Therefore, the cases will be shut down, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The justice department has long known that if Trump won, the criminal cases would be finished because Trump’s attorney general would likely drop the charges. It is also a preemptive measure to ensure that Trump will not be able to order the dismissal of the special counsel, Jack Smith, as he had vowed to do if he takes office and Smith remained in his role.
That possibility had been relished by Trump’s close aides and advisers, who privately imagined that Trump Smith to be sacked and his team vacating their office space in Washington. However, the justice department is still examining how to wind down the cases. They are in various stages and are complicated. The department does not want the classified documents case, which was dismissed and currently under appeal, to go unchallenged.
Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2022 under the cloud of an impending special counsel investigation. The investigation examined Trump’s retention of national security materials at his Mar-a-Lago club after he lost the 2020 presidential election.
He continually said that he was running for his literal freedom, urging voters to return him to the so that the charges would only disappear if he was re-elected presidency. He was able to use legal tactics to delay criminal cases until after Tuesday’s election. His hope was that if he won, he could appoint a loyalist attorney general who would simply drop the prosecutions.
However, he was unable to delay his New York criminal case tied to his efforts to influence the outcome of the 2016 election through an unlawful hush-money scheme, which resulted in his conviction on thirty-four felony counts. But the conviction hardly moved the political needle.
