Judge Chutkan Releases Jack Smith’s Massive Brief Detailing Evidence Against Trump
Judge Tanya Chutkan released Wednesday a redacted version of special counsel Jack Smith’s lengthy brief detailing evidence in the election interference against former President Donald Trump.
Chutkan wrote there is “no support” for Trump’s attorneys’ accusations that the government is driven by “bad-faith partisan bias,” ordering Smith’s 165-page brief on presidential immunity to be filed on the public docket. For weeks, Trump’s attorneys have argued Smith should not be allowed to file the motion, which they claimed would do little more than allow prosecutors to make their case in the “court of public opinion” ahead of the election.
“These accusations, for which Defendant provides no support, continue a pattern of defense filings focusing on political rhetoric rather than addressing the legal issues at hand,” Chutkan wrote. “Not only is that focus unresponsive and unhelpful to the court, but it is also unbefitting of experienced defense counsel and undermining of the judicial proceedings in this case.”
The Supreme Court held in July that former presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts taken in office. Smith’s brief denies that the ruling covers the allegations in his superseding indictment against Trump.
“Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one,” prosecutors wrote. “Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted—a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.”
The first 85 pages of the filing, which is divided into four parts, lay out evidence Smith would present at trial. Prosecutors follow the evidence with an analysis of the legal principles behind presidential immunity and how it applies to Trump’s conduct, ultimately urging Chutkan to find Trump “is subject to trial.”
Judge Chutkin, as expected, has ordered the release of the Smith filing weeks before the election. Smith fought unsuccessfully to try Trump before the election but has now been allowed to release this scathing report.
— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) October 2, 2024
Prior to the election, prosecutors claim Trump told advisors that he would “simply declare victory before all the ballots were counted and any winner was projected.”
“It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election,” prosecutors allege Trump told his family after the election, citing a White House staffer who said he overheard the conversation. “You still have to fight like hell.”
The filing lists a number of private conversations between Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, including a Dec. 21 lunch conversation where Pence allegedly encouraged Trump to look at the election “not as a loss — just as an intermission.”
Where the two were acting in “private capacities as running mates,” prosecutors argue their conversations are “unofficial.” When Trump interacted with Pence regarding his official role as the president of the Senate, prosecutors argue the presumption of immunity can be overcome because the discussions “focused only on his discrete duties in presiding over the certification proceeding—a process in which the Executive Branch, by design, plays no direct role.”
“Because the Vice President’s role is and has always been ministerial, rather than substantive or discretionary, it is difficult to imagine an occasion in which a President would have any valid reason to try to influence it,” prosecutors wrote. “As such, criminalizing a President’s efforts to affect the Vice President’s role as the President of the Senate overseeing the certification of Electoral College results would not jeopardize an Executive Branch function or authority.”
Trump’s campaign slammed the filing as “election interference.”
The release of the brief “following Tim Walz’s disastrous debate performance is another obvious attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine American Democracy and interfere in this election,” Trump Campaign Communications Director Steven Cheung said in a statement.
“Deranged Jack Smith and Washington DC Radical Democrats are hell-bent on weaponizing the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power,” Cheung said. “President Trump is dominating, and the Radical Democrats throughout the Deep State are freaking out. This entire case is a partisan, Unconstitutional Witch Hunt that should be dismissed entirely, together with ALL of the remaining Democrat hoaxes.”
Trump wrote on Truth Social that Democrats are “weaponizing” the Justice Department against him to “prop up their failing Candidate, Kamala Harris.”
“This is egregious PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT, and should not have been released right before the Election,” he wrote. “The Democrat Party is turning America into a Third World Country that tries to censor, harass, and intimidate their Political Opponents.”
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