Smith filed a retooled indictment in Trump’s federal election subversion case on Tuesday.
Special Counsel Jack Smith’s decision to file an updated federal election subversion indictment against former President Donald Trump was a “slick move”, according to former Trump lawyer William Brennan.
Smith filed a superseding indictment in the federal election case on Tuesday, accusing Trump of the same four felony counts that he was indicted on in August 2023. The new indictment has been retooled to comply with the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.
Brennan, who represented the Trump Organization in a tax fraud trial and the former president himself during his second impeachment trial, said during a CNN interview on Tuesday that Smith was smart to file an indictment that “streamlines” the charges against Trump.
“It’s not uncommon for a prosecutor to do this”, Brennan said. “It’s actually a smart move with the trouble that he’s having with the now-former indictment. He now supersedes, he streamlines, and he tries to take that indictment further.”
“It really is a smart move on Jack Smith’s part”, he continued. “Whether it will survive is unclear right now, but it really is a slick move.”
Brennan said that Trump’s current lawyers would likely argue that the new indictment was just a “shined up” version of the previous indictment while predicting that Smith’s failure or success would hinge on the latest document not clashing with the Supreme Court ruling.
