This photo that was included in a court filing submitted by the Department of Justice on August 30, 2022, shows a collection of documents seized by the FBI on August 8th during execution of a search warrant on the Mar-a-Lago resort home of former President Donald Trump. On Tuesday, an appeals court approved a request to drop Trump from the classified documents case. File Photo via Department of Justice/UPI |
License PhotoNov. 27 (UPI) — A federal appeals court has granted a request from special counsel Jack Smith to remove Donald Trump from his classified documents case as he continues to seek prosecution against the president-elect’s co-conspirators.
Trump along with his valet Walt Nauta and the property manager of his Mar-a-Lago, Carlos de Oliveira, were indicted in June 2023 in connection with the illegal retention of classified documents taken from the White House and stashed in his Florida resort after he lost re-election in 2020.
The case was controversially dismissed in July on the grounds that Smith’s appointment as special counsel was unconstitutional. He then filed an appeal.
However, amid litigation, Trump was elected earlier this month to a second term in office, and Smith on Monday asked to court to drop Trump from the case as prosecuting a sitting president violates a long-standing Justice Department policy.
“Appellant’s motion to dismiss the appeal as to Donald J. Trump only is GRANTED,” the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said in its brief order on Tuesday.
Smith had been prosecuting Trump and his co-conspirators in a protracted case centered on more than 300 classified documents retrieved from his Mar-a-Lago resort during an FBI raid after the New York real estate mogul failed to turn them over following repeated requests to do so.
Smith had filed to remove Trump from the document case and to drop all felony offenses against him in a second case accusing the former president for attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election, which led to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
Hours after the request was made, it, too, was granted.
