Jack Smith wants 'substantive material' in new Trump filing to be made public before election

27 September 2024

Earlier this week, Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith submitted a sealed 180-page filing to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan. That filing, which lays out the reasons for his superseding indictment of former President Donald Trump in the January 6 election interference case, could be made public by mid-October.

ABC News reported Friday that Smith is now pushing for Chutkan to make that dossier publicly viewable in a matter of weeks. the special counsel is arguing that the document — with the names of witnesses redacted with the exception of former Vice President Mike Pence — should be unsealed as quickly as possible in order for Americans to be fully informed of the ex-president's prosecution.

"[T]he public's interest is fully vindicated by accessing the substantive material in the Government's filing," Smith wrote. "For example, the unredacted substance of what a witness said is more important, for purposes of public access, than the redacted identity of the specific person who said it."

Should the dossier be unsealed in October, it would publicize the heavily detailed summaries of what investigators gleaned from witness testimony regarding Trump's actions in the days leading up to the January 6, 2021 insurrection. Smith also made the case for why the Supreme Court's 6-3 Trump v. United States decision granting the former president broad immunity for all "official acts" as president doesn't apply in the D.C. case.

When it handed down its decision in July, the Supreme Court left it up to lower courts to determine what constitutes an "official act" protected by the decision. Smith is now making the case that Trump — who was in the lame-duck period of his administration at the time — acted in his own personal interests in his attempts to overturn the 2020 election rather than as the outgoing president.

Following the immunity ruling, Smith re-tooled his initial four-count indictment to strip away anything that could be construed as official presidential acts and submitted the new indictment to Chutkan's court. The justification for that indictment is at the heart of the 180-page filing entered this week, and Politico reported that the decision of whether that justification comes to light rests in Chutkan's hands.

Chutkan has given the former president's team a deadline of Tuesday to submit its own response arguing why the dossier should remain sealed. And a response to Trump from the DOJ will then be submitted by October 10, meaning Chutkan could make a decision on which parts of the document will be available to the public as soon as the middle of next month.

The potential unsealing of Smith's dossier will be the closest thing American voters will get to a public trial, given the ongoing litigation surrounding the D.C. case. Trump's 37-count felony indictment in the classified documents case was thrown out in July by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (whom Trump appointed in 2020), and Smith is appealing her decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals.

However, neither federal case is likely to survive if Trump wins the November election, as he could instruct his attorney general to simply dismiss both cases outright. His last remaining criminal case in Fulton County, Georgia could also be put on hold until 2029 if he wins, as his attorneys have argued that his duties in a potential second term would take precedent over a criminal trial.

Click here to read ABC's report in its entirety.

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