President-elect Donald Trump's former White House lawyer said on Monday that there's "no debate" that the allegations in the special counsel Jack Smith's election subversion case against Trump "constitute crimes."
Smith filed a motion on Monday to drop a Washington, D.C., case against Trump in connection to his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his alleged role in the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Smith also dropped an appeal to the dismissal of a classified documents case against Trump in Florida.
"It's not that, as Jack said in his filings, that the evidence has changed or that the strength of the case has changed at all," Ty Cobb, who served as Trump's White House lawyer during his first year in office, said on CNN. "And keep in mind that Trump's defense throughout this has never been factual. There's really no debate about the facts and there's no debate that the facts constitute crimes."
He added: "What the debate has always been, in Trump's mind, is 'No, no, no, you can't get me.' And that proved to be true, that they ran out of time and the American people bestowed upon him the presidency, which puts him in a constitutional position that he can no longer be pursued."
Newsweek reached out to a spokesperson for Trump for comment about Cobb's remarks.
Smith on Monday appeared to leave open the possibility of Trump facing criminal charges down the road: he moved to dismiss the election subversion case "without prejudice," which is a legal term meaning Trump could be charged after leaving office in 2029.
"The Constitution requires that this case be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated," the special counsel's filing said. "And although the Constitution requires dismissal in this context, consistent with the temporary nature of the immunity afforded a sitting President, it does not require dismissal with prejudice."
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who oversaw the January 6 case against Trump, granted Smith's motion shortly after it was filed.
CNN's Erin Burnett asked Cobb on Monday about the possibility of the case coming back after Trump leaves office.
"Will Trump ever be held accountable?" Burnett asked.
Cobb laid out a few hypothetical scenarios that could play out, saying that "if there was some conspiracy to obstruct witness testimony, or continued obstruction with regard to the evidence in the case or with witnesses that's occurring today, that could arguably extend the statute of limitations beyond his term."
But, he added, "the simple reality of this is no. I mean, this case is dead. This case is not going to be restarted or revived."
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