Jack Smith’s new filing shows why January 6 should hurt Trump. But don’t expect a major public reaction.
What was the first October surprise of this election? Was it a strike by East Coast stevedores? Was it the threat of a hot war between Israel and Iran? Or was it the release of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page motion, unsealed yesterday, in the federal case against Donald Trump for subverting the 2020 presidential election?
The answer is almost certainly option D: none of the above. (And by the way, it’s only October 3.)
Smith’s filing seeks to convince Judge Tanya Chutkan that despite a Supreme Court decision this summer that grants presidents criminal immunity for actions taken in their official capacity, charges against Trump are still valid. It offers the most detailed portrait yet of Trump’s paperwork coup and his apparent malicious indifference to the sacking of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The filing doesn’t change anything about the existing understanding of what happened in the weeks between Election Day 2020 and the riot, but it adds new information. Perhaps the most appalling detail concerns Trump’s reaction to news that Vice President Mike Pence had been evacuated from the Capitol because of a threat to his life. According to Smith, the president simply looked at the aide who delivered the news and said, “So what?” Overall, the filing underscores how serious a threat to rule of law and American democracy Trump was and is.
