D.C. Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed a long-awaited immunity brief from Special Counsel Jack Smith on Oct. 2. The brief unveiled Trump and his associates’ communications while outlining Smith’s many arguments and indicating a long road ahead for pre-trial litigation.
Smith argued that the allegations remaining in his indictment contained non-immune conduct and alleged that “[a]lthough the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Trump v. United States had prompted Smith to file a superseding indictment that shed allegations surrounding Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department. The high court remanded the case for Chutkan to determine several things, including whether some of the other conduct involved was official or unofficial.
A presumption of immunity surrounds Trump’s official conduct in interactions with Vice President. Still, Smith is arguing that he can overcome that presumption, as well as any presumption that applies to various other communications cited by the prosecution.
Trump blasted the brief as “falsehood-ridden” and a way of interfering with the 2024 presidential election, which is just over a month away. Former Federal Election Commission member Hans Von Spakovsky told The Epoch Times that Smith’s brief was “blatant election interference at its worst.”
Former federal prosecutor Neama Rahmani told The Epoch Times that the motion is “important because it helps prove Trump’s knowledge that he lost the election and his intent to overcome the results nonetheless.” Part of Smith’s brief pledges to introduce evidence of Trump making up “figures from whole cloth.”
Smith’s brief contains, among other things, an allegation that a White House staffer overheard Trump telling his family that “it doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”
It also shows allegations that Trump mocked his attorney Sidney Powell, that a campaign staffer told a contact in Detroit to cause a “riot,” and that Trump was told repeatedly that his claims about the election were unfounded.
An appeal and protracted legal battle is likely, given the complexity of the immunity issue and other forthcoming motions to dismiss. Trump’s legal team responded to the brief with a filing that requested the opportunity to file a longer-than-usual brief since Smith was able to file an “oversized” one.
–Sam Dorman
BOOKMARKS
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