President-elect Donald Trump has had some of his charges dismissed after his victory on 5 November.
So, which charges have been dropped – and why?
FactCheck takes a look.
Which charges against Donald Trump have been dropped – and why?
Special counsel Jack Smith announced he is dropping both his 2020 election interference case and the classified documents case against Donald Trump. Mr Trump had pleaded not guilty in both cases.
This was announced in two separate motions filed on Monday (25 November).
The federal election interference case saw Mr Trump facing felony counts for his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election. He was accused of mounting a campaign to overturn Joe Biden’s victory in the election in the two months from Election Day on 3 November 2020 to 6 Jan 2021, when the Capitol riot took place.
In dismissing the federal election interference case, Mr Smith said there was a precedent to not bring an indictment or proceedings against a sitting president, and that the decision had been made due to the recommendations of the Justice Department.
Mr Smith, in a six-page filing to Judge Tanya Chutkan, wrote: “The (Justice) Department’s position is that the Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated.”
He added: “This outcome is not based on the merits or strength of the case against the defendant.”
The classified documents case saw Mr Trump facing felony counts for allegedly hoarding classified documents after he left office and impeding the government’s efforts to retrieve them. In 2022, Mr Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Florida resort was searched and 11,000 documents were seized, including around 100 marked as classified and some labelled as top secret.
Are there any outstanding cases against Donald Trump?
At the beginning of the year, Mr Trump faced a number of criminal charges connected to the two federal cases and others.
But the Supreme Court ruled this summer that he could not be prosecuted for “official acts” taken as president, and now Mr Trump has been elected, almost all those charges have been dropped.
Mr Trump was convicted of felony crimes earlier this year, when a New York jury found him guilty of all 34 charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a “hush money” payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who said the two had an affair.
But the sentencing for Mr Trump’s conviction in this case has now been delayed again.
In Georgia, where Trump also faces election subversion charges, an appeals court is considering whether to overturn a previous ruling allowing Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to stay on the case despite a relationship she had with a prosecutor she hired.
In this case, Mr Trump faces felony counts for his alleged election interference in that state. A recording obtained by ABC News showed Mr Trump asking Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” the votes needed to win.
The president-elect has pleaded not-guilty to all charges in both the “hush money” case and the Georgia election interference case.
After the “hush money” sentencing was postponed, a spokesman for Mr Trump told Business Insider: “President Trump won a landslide victory as the American People have issued a mandate to return him to office and dispose of all remnants of the Witch Hunt cases.”
(Image credit: Jonah Elkowitz/Shutterstock)
