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Special Counsel Jack Smith said on Monday that the evidence against now President-elect Donald Trump in the 2020 election case is rock-solid and that no one is “above the law” — but that he’d nonetheless drop the charges against Trump.

But if that’s the case, why bail out now? Surely if Trump is really the criminal mastermind Smith alleges he is, there’s no conscionable way he could drop the charges. The reality is that Smith knows this was never about the law. It was about leftists using lawfare to prosecute and ideally jail their political opponent.

“After careful consideration, the Department has determined that OLC’s [Office of Legal Counsel] prior opinions concerning the Constitution’s prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President apply to this situation and that as a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” Smith’s filing stated.

Smith still made sure to add a throw-away-line that the decision to drop the case did not “turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind.” But, Smith added, the Department of Justice concluded that pursuing the case would hinder Trump’s ability to lead.

Trump was indicted by Smith for questioning the administration of the 2020 election. The Supreme Court torpedoed Smith’s efforts in July when it ruled 6-3 that a president has “absolute immunity” for “actions within his conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority” and “at least presumptive immunity” for all “official acts.” The court sent several questions pertaining to the charges against Trump back to the lower court to determine whether his actions constituted an official act. Smith then filed a superseding indictment against Trump, refusing to let the case go when he thought it would hurt Trump’s chances of winning the election.

The Trump-Vance transition team celebrated the decision in a statement.

“Today’s decision by the DOJ ends the unconstitutional federal cases against President Trump, and is a major victory for the rule of law,” Trump communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement. “The American People and President Trump want an immediate end to the political weaponization of our justice system and we look forward to uniting our country.”

Smith isn’t the only Democrat to admit that the lawfare was purely political.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg agreed on Tuesday to indefinitely delay Trump’s sentencing in the case regarding Trump’s alleged payments to his then-lawyer Michael Cohen. Cohen was purportedly instructed to pay pornographer Stormy Daniels to stay quiet about an alleged affair (which is not illegal). But Bragg claimed that Trump’s payments to Cohen (which were classified as legal payments) should have been classified as campaign expenses, alleging that the payments were made to influence the 2016 election. Cohen, however, testified that Trump was concerned that the allegations would negatively affect his family after they first surfaced in 2011.

Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2