Jack Smith Ruins Trump Campaign

Special Poll

Special counsel Jack Smith detailed the “increasingly desperate” attempts by former President Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election in a lengthy motion made public by a judge on Wednesday.

Trump and his legal team had opposed the release of the motion, arguing that it could interfere with the November election results. The motion reveals new information related to Trump’s federal case concerning the 2020 election.

U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the redacted version of the motion on Wednesday.

In the motion, Smith describes Trump’s actions as part of a “private criminal effort.” He emphasizes that Trump was acting in his capacity as a candidate, not in an official role as president, during these efforts.

This appears to be an attempt by Smith to respond to a significant Supreme Court ruling earlier this year, which stated that presidents are immune from prosecution for “official acts.”

“At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private one; he extensively used private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office,” Smith wrote.

Smith further accused Trump of knowingly spreading false claims about election fraud. He wrote that Trump’s advisors, acting in their private or campaign-related capacities, repeatedly informed him that these claims were not true.

Smith cited an instance where a White House staffer overheard Trump telling family members, “it doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”

The motion also highlights former Vice President Mike Pence’s multiple conversations with Trump, where Pence told him there was no evidence of fraud.

Smith wrote that, “when all else had failed” in Trump’s attempt to stay in power, he “directed an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification.”

Trump allegedly used false election claims to “inflame and motivate” his supporters to march to the Capitol and disrupt the certification process.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung described the filing as “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional,” and again claimed it was an effort to interfere with the November election.

Smith had filed the sealed legal brief last week, leaving it to Judge Chutkan to decide whether to release it publicly, or in a redacted form.

Prosecutors indicated that the brief contains new, previously unseen evidence. Trump’s legal team argued in their own filing that if the brief were to be made public, it should contain more redactions and objected to the timing of its release given that early voting had already begun.

Prosecutors responded by stating that they have “no role or interest in partisan politics.”

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to charges related to federal election subversion.

The former president has been indicted in four criminal cases, though three have been paused or dismissed. Earlier this year, Trump was convicted in New York on 34 felony counts related to falsifying business records.