President-Elect Donald Trump’s victory on Nov. 5 has dramatically changed the game for his four pending criminal cases, which are likely to end without any prison time, experts indicated to The Epoch Times.
Special counsel Jack Smith’s office declined to comment when asked about Trump’s ongoing cases but pointed The Epoch Times to longstanding Department of Justice (DOJ) policy against prosecuting a sitting president.
The Constitution offers Trump, once he takes office, a series of new protections he didn’t have as a candidate. A 2000 memo from DOJ states that “indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting president would unconstitutionally undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions.”
The Supremacy Clause in particular would help Trump avoid jail time since being in custody would interfere with his ability to serve as commander in chief, multiple experts like Heritage Foundation Vice President John Malcolm told The Epoch Times.
Smith is currently leading two cases against Trump—one in Washington and another in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit, which is hearing Smith’s appeal to Florida Judge Aileen Cannon’s dismissal of his classified documents prosecution.
The election has been portrayed as a referendum on the cases against Trump. “I think that a lot of people felt as if these were ... politicized prosecutions, and I think [people] judge him as more a victim than an offender,” Malcolm said.
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Former Attorney General William Barr told Fox News Digital: “The American people have rendered their verdict” and that both his successor, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and state prosecutors “should respect the people’s decision and dismiss the cases against President Trump now.”
Trump is scheduled for sentencing this month in New York where a jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying documents. It’s unclear how New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan will weigh constitutional arguments in sentencing but he is expected to rule on Nov. 12 on Trump’s arguments related to presidential immunity.
Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis, who won re-election this month, is still prosecuting Trump and his associates for their conduct surrounding the 2020 presidential election, but faces several hurdles. The case has been put on hold and an appeals court is expected to rule on whether the judge overseeing her case wrongly ruled against disqualifying her.
Malcolm said that the Supremacy Clause would likely interfere with Willis’s attempt to continue the prosecution but noted that the question of state prosecutors continuing against presidents was a “brand new question.”
Both Rahmani and Keith Johnson, a criminal defense attorney in Georgia, suspected Willis would try to continue prosecuting Trump’s co-defendants. Outside Willis’s potential disqualification, the Georgia case faced another setback after the judge overseeing that case, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee, dismissed two counts from the indictment in September—leaving just five of the 13 original criminal counts.
Trump cannot pardon his co-defendants, which include former advisers Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows, as they face state-level charges in Georgia, experts said.
—Sam Dorman
RFK JR. WANTS TO ‘MAHA’
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is vowing to reduce chronic disease while playing a key role in shaping President-Elect Donald Trump’s health policy.
It’s unclear which position RFK Jr. will take but Trump said in October that he would let the moderate Democrat “go wild on health. I’m going to get him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines.”
Some have speculated that Trump may make Kennedy the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) or the head of one of its sub-agencies. The HHS oversees 13 agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health.
Fighting “corporate capture of government agencies” and ending the chronic disease epidemic are related, Kennedy said on Sept. 30 at Rescue the Republic, a day-long rally that brought 6,500 supporters of the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement to the National Mall in Washington.
Corporations’ function, he said, was “to advance the mercantile and commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry that has transformed them and the food industry that has transformed them into sock puppets.”
The FDA has been one of RFK Jr.’s main targets. He’s accused the agency of perpetrating a “war on public health” and threatened to fire individuals who partook in its “corrupt system.”
Another target is FDA’s nutrition department, which, he said, was not “protecting our kids” and had “to go.”
Ultra-processed foods, he said, were a primary culprit in the medical crisis among the young. He said that they are partly responsible for the rise in disease.
His uncle, former President John F. Kennedy, had similarly emphasized the importance of physical health. While president, he promoted a fitness program for men and women. He saw freedom and physical health as interrelated, stating that “we must be willing to work for those physical qualities upon which the courage and intelligence and skill of man so largely depend.”
—Sam Dorman and Jeff Louderback
BOOKMARKS
The Federal Reserve cut interest rates again on Nov. 7 amid concerns about inflation. Andrew Moran has more on the implications this decision and how President-elect Trump’s victory might impact monetary policy.
Demographic shifts among women, young men, and black and Hispanic voters helped propelled Trump to victory this month. A new story by Petr Svab helps break down the numbers and the issues surrounding these shifts.
Trump’s election means he will be taking the White House back from the man who took it from him in 2020. Read more about President Joe Biden’s speech following Trump’s victory, including his pledge to assist in a peaceful transition and the conversation he had with his successor.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he had a “productive conversation” with Trump on Nov. 6 amid speculation about how the next administration would handle Ukraine’s conflict with Russia. Ryan Morgan has more on Zelenskyy’s comments following that conversation, as well as recent stances by Trump and Biden on the war-torn country.
Trump-backed Republican Dave McCormick is projected to defeat long-serving Pennsylvania Sen. Bob Casey, a more moderate Democrat who has supported pro-life positions. Jackson Richman reported on Nov. 7 about McCormick’s projected win and campaign.
