According to a court filing that was made on Monday afternoon, the team of special counsel Jack Smith has decided to withdraw from their appeal of the secret materials case against the co-defendants of President-elect Donald Trump.
Instead, they have transferred the matter to the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida, it seems to have finally come to an end, as The Hill reported.
Due to a long-standing policy of the Department of Justice that prohibits the prosecution of a sitting president, Smith decided to withdraw his appeal against Trump last month.
However, his team continued to pursue their appeal against Trump's two co-defendants in the case, Walt Nauta, a longtime Trump aide, and Carlos De Oliveira, an employee of Mar-a-Lago.
In June of 2023, President Trump entered a plea of not guilty to 37 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials.
Prosecutors claimed that Trump had repeatedly refused to return hundreds of documents that contained classified information ranging from the nuclear secrets of the United States to the capabilities of the nation's defense, and that he had also taken steps to thwart the efforts of the government to retrieve the documents.
In a superseding indictment, the former president, together with Nauta and De Oliveira, entered a plea of not guilty to the allegations that they attempted to destroy surveillance footage at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence.
After the United States District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Smith's lawsuit in July, citing the validity of his appointment as special counsel, Smith filed an appeal with the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which is located in Atlanta.
On Monday, Smith's legal team decided to withdraw from the case and hand it over to federal prosecutors in Florida.
This decision was made while the appeal was still proceeding, but under the time-constraints of a potentially complicated presidential inaguration coming in just a few weeks.
Markenzy Lapointe, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has entered his appearance in the matter in a separate filing.
Requests have been made to the office of the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida about the case, but they have yet to offer any further details.
Smith has also been winding down his federal election interference case against Trump following Trump's reelection.
It is anticipated that Smith would give a report on his investigations to Attorney General Merrick Garland in the coming weeks before stepping down from his position as special counsel.
