David Graham: “Trump pulled off this legal trick with a simple and effective strategy of running down the clock until being reelected president. Traditionally, defendants have had two ways to beat a rap. They could convince a judge or jury that they didn’t do the crime, or at least that there isn’t enough evidence to prove they did. Or they could look for a way to get sprung on a technicality. Faced with a choice between A and B, Trump chose option C: weaponize the procedural protections of the American justice system against itself.”

“The problem is not that these protections exist. They are a crucial part of ensuring fairness for all defendants. But just as he has done in other circumstances, Trump sniffed how the things that make the American system great can also be cynically exploited. If you have sufficiently deep pockets and very little shame, you can snow a case under procedural motions, appeals, and long shots, enough to slow the case to a crawl. And in Trump’s case, delay was a victory—not because he could put it off indefinitely, but because he will soon be president again, with the Department of Justice under his authority.”

NBC News: “He is expected to walk through the lower west tunnel, where some of the worst violence of Jan. 6 took place, to be sworn in as president on Jan. 20, 2025.”

Charlie Savage: “The end of the two federal criminal cases against President-elect Donald Trump on Monday left momentous, unsettled questions about constraints on criminal wrongdoing by presidents, from the scope of presidential immunity to whether the Justice Department may continue to appoint outside special counsels to investigate high-level wrongdoing.”

Kim Wehle: “It is hard to escape the grim conclusion: No president out of office has done more to grow the power of the presidency than Donald Trump. And the fact that this strengthening of the office is the result of his misdeeds, and empowers the president to undertake further misdeeds with impunity, is profoundly disturbing.”

Stephen Collinson: “Special counsel Jack Smith set out to prove in the United States of America v. Donald Trump that even presidents are not above the law.”

“Instead, his failed prosecutions ended up making Trump even more powerful as the ebullient president-elect prepares to return to office on January 20.”