Special counsel Jack Smith argues in a new court filing that former President Donald Trump is not immune from prosecution for his conduct immediately after the 2020 presidential election.
A federal judge on Wednesday unsealed a key filing from special counsel Jack Smith’s updated election interference case against former President Donald Trump.
U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Tanya Chutkan unsealed Smith’s 165-page filing, in which Smith argues that Trump is not immune from prosecution for his alleged criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 election results. Smith submitted the document after the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that a president is immune from prosecution for official acts.
« Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one », Smith 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 Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. United States held that Smith could not prosecute Trump for the president’s alleged use of the Justice Department to look into unproven claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election. In response, Smith filed an updated indictment that revised the allegations against Trump to fit within the scope of the Supreme Court’s decision.
In the unsealed filing, Smith told the court that Trump is not immune from the remaining allegations against him and laid out his case for why Trump « must stand trial for his private crimes. »
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges brought against him by Smith.
Here are five key details from the special counsel’s new filing, which is partially redacted: 1. Smith’s ‘factual proffer’
In the filing unsealed Wednesday, Smith outlined a « factual proffer », alleging Trump « resorted to crimes to try to stay in office » after losing the 2020 presidential election.
« With private co-conspirators, the defendant launched a series of increasingly desperate plans to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states that he had lost—Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin », Smith wrote.
« His efforts included lying to state officials in order to induce them to ignore true vote counts; manufacturing fraudulent electoral votes in the targeted states; attempting to enlist Vice President Michael R. Pence, in his role as President of the Senate, to obstruct Congress’s certification of the election by using the defendant’s fraudulent electoral votes; and when all else had failed, on January 6, 2021, directing an angry crowd of supporters to the United States Capitol to obstruct the congressional certification. »
Smith claims that the « throughline of these efforts was deceit », alleging Trump and co-conspirators engaged in a conspiracy to interfere with the federal government function by which the nation collects and counts election results, which is set forth in the Constitution and the Electoral Count Act (ECA); a conspiracy to obstruct the official proceeding in which Congress certifies the legitimate results of the presidential election; and a conspiracy against the rights of millions of Americans to vote and have their votes counted.
