DOJ ditches effort to reinstate charges against Donald Trump's co-defendants

It started with his election victory in November 2024, continued with his nominations getting through, and is now extending to his court cases as well.

Donald Trump just can't stop winning.

According to MSN.com, America's Department of Justice has ditched a bid to reinstate charges against Trump's former co-defendants in his Florida case.

After Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, special counsel Jack Smith withdrew his appeal against Trump in his classified documents case, which U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon had dismissed.

The question remained of what would happen to Trump's co-defendants in the case, Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira.

We have our answer

This is great news for Walt Nauta and Carlos De Oliveira: America's Justice Department under Trump has announced that it is officially moving to dismiss the appeal. This is one of the two ways that the case could be handled for the two defendants, with the other being a pardon from Trump that would dispose of the case for good.

Even though Donald Trump had already been excused from consequences in the case, he probably didn't want this case to move forward. A trial focused on supposed crimes that Donald Trump was involved in would be way too distracting for Trump's goals in the White House, even if the two men were eventually found innocent.

Trump wants LESS focus on the fact he's accused of retaining sensitive national defense information, not more.

Case dismissed

Judge Aileen Cannon had dismissed the documents case against Donald Trump last year, under the reasoning that special counsel Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed to his role in the trial.

Assuming that the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals accepts Trump's government's unopposed appellate dismissal motion, the dismissal will stand for all three defendants.

This dismissal could mean that the case cannot be tested on appeal and will not be able to set a nationwide precedent on special counsels one way or the other. For that to happen, the trial would have needed to have been seen through to completion, the exact thing that Donald Trump was hoping to avoid.

Justification

The status of the appeal against Nauta and De Oliveira was also being used as justification for keeping Jack Smith's final report related to the documents case under wraps.

The idea was to not "prejudice the defendants in the event that their charges were reinstated and they went to trial someday," according to MSN.

While the dismissal of this case means that Jack Smith's report could potentially see the light of day, Trump's team probably sees that as no more desirable than letting the case publicly play out. Donald Trump doesn't want liberals to have any more evidence to attack him with, which Jack Smith's report is presumably full of.

Do you think that abandoning these charges was the right decision, or should the trial have been allowed to proceed?