President Donald Trump responded on Monday to Jack Smith’s decision to deny the two charges against him.
“These charges, like all the other cases I have been forced into, are frivolous and unconstitutional, and should never have been brought,” Trump wrote on social media.
“It was a political robbery, and a low point in our Nation’s History that such a thing could have happened, and yet, I persevered, against all odds, and VICTORY. Make AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump added.
MORE: Special counsel Jack Smith moves to topple Trump’s election, writes stories about ‘categorical’ DOJ rule
Vice President-elect JD Vance said Trump would have “spent the rest of his life in prison” if the 2024 race had turned out differently.
“If Donald J. Trump had lost the election, he probably would have spent the rest of his life in prison,” Vance wrote on X. “These accusations were always political. Now is the time to make sure that what happened to President Trump does not happen in this country again.”
Smith, in a federal investigation, cited a Department of Justice document that he said bars impeachment against the president as the basis for his motion to dismiss the election meddling and documents case.
Later Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan threw out a case to overturn the election against the president-elect.
PHOTO: Republican presidential nominee and former US President, Donald Trump, attends a press conference to deliver the ‘Trump Will Fix’ message, at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida, October 29, 2024. (Marco Bello/Reuters)
Mr. Trump pleaded not guilty to four charges, including one of defrauding the United States, brought by Smith in connection with Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election by President Joe Biden. The case has been plagued by delays and developments, including the Supreme Court’s ruling that the president should be immune from prosecution for actions taken while in office.
Trump also filed 40 charges related to his handling of classified information after leaving the White House. The case was dismissed by a Florida judge in July, although Smith has been appealing the case.
During his presidential campaign, Mr. Trump told supporters that it was his “revenge” and that he was “accused of you.”
MORE: Trump trials: Prosecutors end federal cases as federal cases likely to be halted
Steven Cheung, White House communications director, called Smith’s decision “a huge victory for the rule of law” and said the American people want Trump to end “weapons of our administration.”
Some of Trump’s aides on Capitol Hill also celebrated the success.
“A big victory for America, President Trump, and the fight against the use of weapons of law,” House Speaker Mike Johnson wrote on X. “This was always about politics, not law.”
California Democratic Sen.-elect Adam Schiff, however, said the Department of Justice and the courts “failed to uphold the principle that no one is above the law.”
Schiff was a member of the House January 6 Committee that spent more than a year investigating the attack on the Capitol. The court, which voted to acquit Mr. Trump, identified Mr. Trump and his actions after the 2020 election as the “main cause” of what happened on January 6, 2021.
“The DOJ for neglecting to promptly investigate the events of January 6, and the courts for deliberately delaying the progress of the case and granting immunity,” Schiff wrote on X. “The public deserved better.”
Donald Trump responds to Jack Smith’s decision to dismiss criminal cases that first appeared abcnews.go.com