In a massive legal brief partially released Wednesday, special counsel Jack Smith defended former President Donald J. Trump from prosecution on federal charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election. I explained why not.
The redacted briefs released by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the U.S. District Court in Washington add to the already extensive public record of how Trump tried to cling to power despite losing the election. Adds details.
For example, part of the brief focuses on social media posts that Trump sent on the afternoon of the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which Vice President Mike Pence disappointed all of his supporters. I told him that I had done it. Smith explains why that post on Twitter should be considered the unofficial act of a hopelessly defeated candidate rather than the official act of a president, which is considered immune from prosecution under a landmark Supreme Court ruling this summer. We had a wide range of discussions.
Trump’s Twitter posts drew attention from the enraged crowd to harm Pence, and after the Secret Service took the vice president to a secure location near the Oval Office where Trump was watching television, aides I burst into the dining room. The aide alerted him to the development in hopes that Trump would take action to ensure Pence’s safety.
Instead, Trump simply looked at his aides and said, “So what?” According to newly revealed grand jury testimony in briefs.
Long earlier, one of Trump’s lawyers had made an “honest assessment” that Trump’s false claims that the election was marred by widespread fraud would not hold up in court, according to the brief. It is said that he was giving But Trump didn’t seem to mind.
The brief quotes Trump as saying, “The details don’t matter.”
Around the same time, Mr. Pence also tried to convince Mr. Trump that he had lost the election, according to the brief. For example, during a private lunch in mid-November 2020, Mr. Pence suggested to Mr. Trump that he accept defeat and run again for the next presidential election, but Mr. Trump did not want to hear about it.
The preparatory document quotes him as saying, “I don’t know,” and “2024 is a long way off.”
Smith’s 165-page brief was originally filed under seal last week. Judge Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, said the extent of the indictment is unclear following the Supreme Court’s landmark July ruling that granted Trump broad immunity from prosecution for many of his official actions while in office. It was designed to help determine if it could survive.
Mr. Smith and his attorneys have used briefs to paint the indictment’s many individual allegations as all legitimate actions, and as protected actions taken by Mr. Trump in his presidential rights. Rather, I depicted him as an example of a presidential candidate campaigning in his personal role. Formal capacity as president.
“Defendants argue that their criminal plot to overturn the 2020 presidential election is immune from prosecution because it involves an official act,” prosecutors wrote. “That is not the case. Although the defendant was a sitting president at the time of the alleged conspiracy, his plan was essentially private.”
Still, despite its narrow legal purpose, the extensive brief filed in U.S. District Court in Washington provides the best account yet of what Smith learned during the nearly two-year trial. It also served as a preparatory document. Trump investigation.
The application is accompanied by a lengthy sealed appendix containing much of the investigation’s findings (FBI interviews, search warrant affidavits, grand jury testimony), some of which may soon be released to the public. There is also gender.
The special counsel’s submission to Judge Chutkan broadly echoes the tome-like report released nearly two years ago by the House Select Committee that investigated the events leading up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. It was no different from the book.
Smith’s filing includes lobbying powerful state officials to overturn the election results and creating false electoral rolls that claim Trump won key states he actually lost. It described well-known intersecting conspiracies by Mr. Trump and his allies, including efforts to And during the process of certifying the final results at the Capitol on January 6, he pressured his Vice President, Mike Pence, to end the election his way.
