Special counsel says Trump's election prohibited case from going to trial. Here is the news to know on Tuesday.

IF THESE WERE “NORMAL” TIMES, Pam Bondi almost certainly would not be confirmed as attorney general. But these are far from normal times, and with her leading the Department of Justice under a re-elected Donald Trump, the times are likely to get a whole lot less normal.

Just after noon next Monday, Donald Trump will take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution, despite having, four years before, “engaged in an unprecedented criminal effort to overturn the legitimate results of the election in order to retain power.”

Pam Bondi cast herself as an independent prosecutor who would keep politics out of the Justice Department if confirmed as President Trump’s attorney general. Senators on both sides predicted she would be confirmed.

Former special counsel Jack Smith used his final report to counter years of claims from President-elect Trump while peeling back the curtain on how he approached the unprecedented case. The

Prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to convict Donald Trump for efforts to overturn the 2020 result before they had to drop the case, Jack Smith said.

The report calls Trump's claims that the special counsel was influenced by Biden for political reasons "laughable."

The Justice Department now enters a second Trump administration with less authority to pursue a president than it has had in half a century.

Trump swore to uphold the Constitution in January 2017. He violated that oath in January 2021. Now, in January 2025, he will swear it again. The ritual survives. Its meaning has been lost. In 2022, a prominent conservative intellectual proclaimed that the United States had entered a “post-Constitutional moment”:

Jack Smith's report says prosecutors could have convicted Trump had his election win not prevented the case from proceeding.

Like me on the hardwood, Jack Smith was a prosecutorial force when unopposed, undefeated when uncontested. But put him on (or in) the court, with a judge and defense team and political reality standing in the way, and he’s produced tepid results.

The Justice Department released special counsel Jack Smith’s report on President-elect Trump’s election interference case, just days before he returns to the White House. Smith