'Desperate conspiracy': Latest Jack Smith filing reveals 'heart' of special counsel prosecution against Trump
A new filing by special counsel Jack Smith suggests the prosecutor plans to make the case that former President Donald Trump directly stoked the violence that erupted at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Smith's 15-page filing cites a plethora of case law arguing against Trump's motion to strike any mention of the rioting and violence during his DC trial scheduled for next March. Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney reported that Smith is using the same tactics by the House January 6 Select Committee, in which direct testimony from rioters during their own trials will be used to argue that the former president's words and actions were at the heart of the violent chaos that led to multiple deaths and hundreds of injuries.
"The Jan. 6 violence won’t just be a side note at Donald Trump’s D.C. trial," Cheney tweeted. "[I]t’s the heart of the case, the last desperate tool of a man bent on seizing power at any cost."
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Cheney added that Smith's trial could be seen as "more of an apparent successor" to last year's select committee hearings, in which both former Trump staffers and rioters testified about the ex-president's role in the rampage the day Congress was due to certify the results of the 2020 election.
"[Prosecutors are] going to adopt the very same factual theory here and tell the same story that we did, that [the riot] is the logical last step of an increasingly desperate conspiracy," January 6 Select Committee chief investigative counsel Tim Heaphy told Politico.
The latest filing laid out how Trump — who delivered a fiery speech in which he encouraged supporters to "go to the Capitol" and "fight like hell" — proceeded to watch "hours of television" of the riots without calling off his supporters. Smith noted that Trump was "indifferent" to the fact that then-Vice President Mike Pence had to be evacuated from the US Senate floor and moved to a secure location once rioters breached police barricades.
"Although the defendant knew that the certification proceedings had been interrupted and suspended, he rejected multiple entreaties to calm the rioters and instead provoked them by publicly attacking the Vice President," the filing read. "And instead of decrying the rioters’ violence, he embraced them, issuing a video message telling them that they were 'very special' and that 'we love you.'"
READ MORE: Jack Smith slams Trump's motion to dismiss: 'The defendant stands alone in American history'
In August, Smith indicted the former president on four criminal counts: Conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights. He notably did not charge Trump with any crimes relating to his speech. However, his latest filing in the January 6 case suggests Trump had the intent of weaponizing a crowd of his supporters to achieve his aim of overturning the 2020 election by force, if necessary.
"Ultimately, the defendant’s three conspiracies culminated and converged when, on January 6, the defendant attempted to obstruct and prevent the congressional certification at the Capitol," Smith wrote. "One of the ways that the defendant did so, as alleged in the indictment, was to direct an angry crowd of his supporters to the Capitol and to continue to stoke their anger while they were rioting and obstructing the certification."
Trump is scheduled to stand trial in Washington, DC on March 4, 2024. Click here to read Smith's full filing.
