Dem
47
GOP
53
Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D-CA) has blasted the decision of Special Counsel Jack Smith to drop the cases against Donald Trump. Schiff said: "The Justice Department and the court system failed to uphold the principle that no one is above the law. DOJ by neglecting to promptly investigate the events of Jan 6, and the courts by willfully delaying progress of the case and providing immunity."
But more specifically, Schiff, a graduate of Harvard Law School and lead prosecutor in the first impeachment of Donald Trump, said that Jack Smith made a serious technical error in how he handled ending the cases. Smith dropped the cases because DoJ policy is not to prosecute a sitting president. But Smith had some options on how he ended the cases. Smith asked the judge to dismiss the cases without prejudice. This means that the cases can be brought back to life after Trump leaves the White House. But it requires specific action on the part of the DoJ to reactivate them. If a Republican president succeeds Trump, his AG is very unlikely to reactivate the cases. If the AG does nothing, the cases are dead for at least 4 years, and probably forever.
Schiff argues that a far better option would have been to simply postpone the process until Jan. 21, 2029. Then the cases would automatically continue starting then. It would take a specific action on the part of the DoJ to kill the cases. At the very least, a specific decision by the new AG to kill the cases would probably result in an uproar that could hurt the incoming president. As it is now, all the new AG has to do is—nothing—and the cases go away by magic. There are unlikely to be any news stories about the AG doing nothing. Schiff sees this as a serious tactical error on Smith's part.
Although Trump may be off the hook now, that is not true of his cronies. The fake-electors case in Georgia is pending, waiting for an appeals court to decide if Fulton County D.A. Fani Willis may continue on the case after hiring her then-boyfriend to lead it. If the appeals court tells her what she did was exceedingly stupid, but not illegal, the case will probably continue, but without Trump as an indictee. In addition, the fake electors case in Arizona is definitely going forward according to Arizona AG Kris Mayes (D). She didn't indict Trump, but did indict Rudy Giuliani and some others close to Trump. (V)