Special counsel Jack Smith asks court to halt his appeal against Trump in Florida case - 1010 WCSI

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

55% : Smith said in his filing Wednesday that he plans to give an updated report on the official status of both cases against Trump on Dec. 2.JUSTICE DEPARTMENT LOOKING TO WIND DOWN TRUMP CRIMINAL CASES AHEAD OF INAUGURATIONThe motion is likely a welcome relief for Trump, who had vowed to fire Smith "within two seconds" if re-elected -- ridding him of both a yearlong legal foe and the criminal charges Trump faced following his loss in the 2020 election.Smith was tapped by Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to investigate both the alleged effort by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 election, as well as Trump's keeping of allegedly classified documents at his residence in Florida after leaving the White House in 2020.
53% : CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APPThe news comes after Fox News confirmed that Smith will be stepping down before Trump takes office.
40% : Rather, it asks the court to hold the appeal against Trump in "abeyance" -- effectively keeping the appeal on the docket, but halting it from being advanced in any capacity.
37% : Fox News reported earlier this week that the Department of Justice had been looking to wind down its criminal cases against Trump in Washington, D.C., and Florida, citing an Office of Legal Counsel memo that states it is against Department of Justice policy to investigate a sitting president for federal criminal charges and is a violation of the separation of powers doctrine.
33% : And it comes just days after Smith moved to vacate all deadlines in a separate 2020 election interference case against Trump in Washington, D.C.While the charges in both cases have not been officially dropped, they appear to be heading in that direction.
22% : The motion was filed by Smith in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, and comes months after U.S. Judge Aileen Cannon in July dismissed the case against Trump, which centered on his handling of allegedly classified documents after leaving the White House in 2020.

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.