Justice Department likely to wait to pursue any criminal charges against Trump until after midterms: report

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The Justice Department will likely wait until after November’s midterm elections to bring charges against Donald Trump if they decide the former president broke the law, according to a new report.

In the wake of the FBI leading a raid at his Mar-a-Lago home earlier this month, the former president could face potential prosecution for his handling of classified documents, says Bloomberg. Though, people familiar with the situation told the publication that federal prosecutors are unlikely to charge Mr Trump with any crime close to election day on 8 November.

Attempts to overturn Mr Trump’s 2020 election loss to Joe Biden are also the subject of a separate and ongoing Justice Department probe.

While Mr Trump is expected to announce a third presidential run in 2024, CNN notes that his legal issues may see him postpone that announcement.

“Everyone was operating under the assumption that shortly after Labor Day would be the best possible time to launch, but that has changed and he’s being told to deal with the FBI stuff first,” a Trump adviser told the network.

In Bloomberg’s report, they note that it had been a long-standing DOJ policy that prosecutors would not file charges or take major investigative action that would impact a candidate, party, or election within 60 days of voters going to the polls. That would put the cut-off point at 10 September, which one source told the outlet makes it unlikely anything will announced before the elections.

Though, the Justice Department has infamously not always followed its own advice when it comes to this situation. Just days before the 2016 election, FBI Director James Comey announced that the agency had reopened a high-profile investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server.

Critics of the move said that Mr Comey’s revelation hurt the former secretary of State’s campaign against Mr Trump, who went on to win the White House.

In 2020, then-Attorney General Bill Barr announced weeks before Mr Trump took on and lost to Mr Biden, that officials could make announcements and take investigative action over voter fraud cases.