Earlier today, NRO's Mark Antonio Wright advised Joe Biden to begin national healing by pardoning Donald Trump and convincing Kathy Hochul to do the same. That advice may get mooted -- on the federal level, anyway -- by the Department of Justice. Both Fox News and CBS News report that special counsel Jack Smith will resign from office and withdraw the pending federal prosecutions against Trump by the time he takes office.

Fox News reports it as a done deal:

Fox News is reporting that Special Counsel Jack Smith will be gone before Trump is sworn-in and his two federal criminal cases will be withdrawn at the same time. pic.twitter.com/OqIVyA31Og

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 6, 2024

"Donald Trump's legal problems have all essentially gone away since he won last night," declares the Fox News reporter. That's not true -- his federal legal problems might go away. He nods toward the Fani Willis indictment in Fulton County and declares that it has "many problems," which is true, but it's still in place. 

More immediately, Trump is due to appear in Judge Juan Merchan's court in Manhattan this month to get sentenced for his conviction on 34 felonies related to an NDA payment to Stormy Daniels. No one knows how that will go, but it seems likely that Merchan will not be all that anxious to sentence someone who just won a presidential election. I'd guess that the case gets continued, if an appellate court doesn't intervene first -- but those two state and local cases aren't impacted at all by the DoJ's decisions.

Nevertheless, Politico's Kyle Cheney writes, Merchan may have second thoughts now:

Should Merchan proceed with the sentencing as scheduled, he’ll face the unprecedented task of deciding whether to impose a prison sentence of up to four years on a defendant who is set to occupy the White House come January. If he does order Trump to prison, Trump almost certainly won’t be required to serve that sentence until after he leaves office in 2029.

And even if Merchan opts for a punishment without a prison term — home confinement, say, or community service — Trump’s lawyers will likely seek to delay those, too, arguing that logistical challenges and constitutional duties should preclude a president-elect, or a sitting president, from having to carry out any sentence.

Seems rather pointless now, no? That applies to the federal cases too, and for the same reason, to which we'll get at the end. 

CBS News reports that the DoJ hasn't actually reached a decision ... yet:

There are active discussions occurring between Justice Department leaders and special counsel Jack Smith's office about how to wind down the ongoing federal cases against President-elect Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the talks. pic.twitter.com/vRtKQyTAWm

— CBS News (@CBSNews) November 6, 2024

The Justice Department and special counsel Jack Smith's office are engaged in active discussions about how to wind down the ongoing federal prosecutions against President-elect Donald Trump, according to two people familiar with the talks.

At the center of the discussions is the Justice Department's longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president and the need to enable a smooth transition to a second term in the White House for Trump, the sources said.

More accurately, the DoJ may not have a specific plan for unwinding the Smith indictments, but they have decided to do so, one way or the other. Otherwise, why be "engaged in active discussions" about it at all?

They can address the Florida indictment pretty easily by withdrawing the appeal on Judge Aileen Cannon's ruling that Smith's appointment violated the Constitution. The DoJ may not want to let that stand, however, in case they want to appoint a special counsel from the private sector again. (Why they would want that option is another question.) 

Withdrawing the J6 indictment is a trickier proposition. The Biden administration has pushed hard for prosecutions by arguing that the riot was an organized insurrection. They have relentlessly painted Trump as the head of that organization, which makes dropping his case a problem for keeping the pressure on other J6 defendants ... not to mention the political heat they'll take from progressives who pushed for lawfare for the last three-plus years. 

On the other hand, as I argue in a Salem Radio editorial, the electorate has delivered a mandate to end lawfare in politics:

Democrats spent the last two years piling indictment after indictment on Trump, from shady local DAs to the Department of Justice, all to stop Trump from running again. 

And with each indictment, voters became attuned to what the left was doing—and they rallied to Trump’s side, turning him into a more powerful political juggernaut.

This seems like the real reason. The whole point of these indictments was to "disqualify" Trump from running for office again. That's also clearly the case with the absurd machinations from Bragg and Willis. Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris used these indictments to paint Trump as a dangerous criminal who should not be allowed to have a second term. Not only did it not work, it backfired, making him even more popular with voters who smelled a rat all along. 

Now that Trump got re-elected, the issue is moot. Better to send Smith packing and end the courtroom politicking, and hopefully that's a lesson that will stick.