Search results for "Jack smith chutkan"

Trump-appointed judge Aileen Cannon faces her 'starkest test yet'

When former special counsel Jack Smith was prosecuting two separate criminal cases against Donald Trump, he dealt with two very different federal judges: Tanya Chutkan with his election interference case, and Trump appointee Aileen Cannon with the Mar-a-Lago/classified documents case.

Chutkan was never suspected of having any type of bias against Smith's election case, whereas Cannon's critics alleged that she had a bias against the classified documents case from the beginning.

According to Newsweek's Jasmine Laws, Cannon "now faces perhaps her starkest neutrality test yet" with the classified documents case.

In an article published on March 31, Laws reports, "Florida-based Judge Cannon may have thought she put Trump's classified documents case to bed last month, when, in a February 23 order, she barred anyone at the Justice Department (DOJ) from 'releasing, distributing, conveying, or sharing with anyone outside the Department of Justice any information or conclusions' from prosecutor Jack Smith's report. However, the ink was barely dry when new revelations emerged last week that pose a fresh headache for Cannon."

Laws reports that the "latest dispute" with Cannon "stems from a March 13 DOJ production to the House Judiciary Committee" that the committee's top Democrat, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D- Maryland) "said included non-public materials covered by Cannon's earlier secrecy rulings in the classified-documents case."

In a late March letter to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, Raskin wrote, "In short, the position of the DOJ appears to be that it can violate Judge Cannon's order and grand jury secrecy whenever it sees an opportunity to smear Jack Smith."

Laws notes, "Judge Cannon, a Trump-appointee, has previously been accused of unfairly making rulings favorable to Trump, such as delaying the trial until after the 2024 election, dismissing the case entirely, stating special counsel Jack Smith's appointment violated the Constitution, and the blocking of Smith's final report. Will Cannon open a contempt inquiry to establish what was leaked and if so, by whom? Her critics will be watching closely."

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

Legal expert: Chutkan will 'rule quickly' on Jack Smith’s request to unseal Trump dossier

According to a prominent legal expert, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is unlikely to delay on deciding whether to publicly release a comprehensive dossier Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith recently submitted.

On Friday, Smith formally asked Chutkan — who is overseeing former President Donald Trump's D.C. election interference case — to allow portions of the dossier to be available for public view prior to the November election. And according to Newsweek, former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks thinks Chutkan's decision may come sooner than expected.

"Her history has shown that she acts quickly. So I expect that she will rule quickly enough on this that we could see it," Wine-Banks said on a recent episode of the SistersInLaw podcast.

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

Smith submitted the 180-page dossier under seal to Chutkan earlier this week, which reportedly gives summaries of what witnesses told Smith's team of investigators regarding the former president's actions in the days leading up the January 6, 2021 insurrection. The special counsel argued to Judge Chutkan that the details of the document are in the public interest, and that he's willing to redact names of witnesses outside of former Vice President Mike Pence.

The D.C. case suffered a setback after the Supreme Court ruled in July's Trump v. United States decision that presidents have absolute broad immunity from criminal prosecution for all "official acts." But the Court left it up to lower court judges (like Chutkan) to decide how to define "official acts" protected by the immunity ruling vs. unofficial acts a president carries out as a private citizen.

Smith entered a new superseding indictment following the immunity decision. Wine-Banks opined that it is likely to survive Trump's attempts to toss it out, and that his new dossier likely includes "a pretty good summary of what the facts are that relate to the superseding indictment and why the things that he still has in the charges are all either completely unofficial acts, personal acts of candidate Trump, or why they are rebuttable official acts."

Chutkan has given Trump's lawyers until Tuesday to submit their response to Smith. Depending on how Chutkan ultimately rules, the dossier could become at least partially unsealed by mid-October, giving voters several weeks to learn more about why Smith decided to indict the 45th president of the United States on multiple felony charges.

READ MORE: 'Pared away all official conduct': Expert says Jack Smith's new indictment is immunity-proof

The January 6th case is just one of two federal cases against the former president. In the Southern District of Florida, Trump-appointed U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon threw out Smith's 37-count indictment of Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents after he left office.

Cannon cited Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' argument in his concurring Trump v. United States opinion that Smith's appointment was unconstitutional to justify her dismissal of the case. Smith has appealed her decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has ruled against Cannon twice — with both of those decisions pertaining to Trump-related cases.

Should Trump win a second term in the White House this November, it's likely he'll have his appointed attorney general dismiss both federal cases against him. His last remaining criminal case in Georgia could also be put on hold for four years, as his attorneys have argued the trial should be put on hold until January of 2029 if Trump is victorious this fall.

Click here to read Newsweek's article in full.

READ MORE: Jack Smith makes case for Trump prosecution as election draws closer and closer

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

Trump-appointed judge under fire for hiding Jack Smith report

Before concluding his work as special counsel for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), Jack Smith submitted a two-volume report on his federal prosecutions of Donald Trump — the first volume on his election interference case (which was assigned to Judge Tanya Chutkan), the second volume on his Mar-a-Lago documents case (which was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee).

Volume 1 was released in January 2025, although Chutkan dismissed the election interference case without prejudice at Smith's request. After Trump defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the 2024 election, Smith cited DOJ's policy against prosecuting a sitting president when he made his request to Chutkan.

Volume 2, however, remains unreleased, and two groups — American Oversight and Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute — are urging the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to order Cannon to make it public in redacted form.

Law & Crime reporter Matt Naham, in an article published on February 10, explains, "The latter volume has never seen the outside of Cannon's chambers. Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge who threw out Trump's Espionage Act prosecution and ruled that Smith was unlawfully appointed as special counsel, has, for a calendar year, kept Volume 2 of Smith's report out of public view. At first, the rationale behind the injunction was preventing 'prejudice' to valet Waltine Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira Mar-a-Lago property manager, former Trump co-defendants who had active appeals. But those appeals went away when the Trump Administration dropped the cases, following Trump's inauguration, and so did the prospect that Nauta and de Oliveira will face charges in the future, according to the Knight Institute."

In a legal brief filed on February 9, the Knight First Amendment Institute and American Oversight told the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, "There is also no risk that a future administration will revive the charges, because the five-year statute of limitations that applies to the charges will expire in 2028, before President Trump leaves office. It is thus disingenuous for Nauta and De Oliveira to represent that they remain in 'jeopardy' and that as a result 'their due process rights remain a serious concern that strongly outweighs any interest that the Government or the public might have in the release of the Special Counsel's Report.'"

Cannon's injunction against the release of Volume 2 expires on February 24, and American Oversight is arguing that her reason for the injunction "no longer exists."

"Before the expiration date," Naham notes, "Trump and his former co-defendants have each supported Cannon issuing an order which would 'permanently' block the DOJ from releasing 'so-called Special Counsel' Smith's 'unlawfully prepared' report and destroy it."

Trump was facing four criminal indictments when he won the 2024 GOP presidential nomination: Smith's two federal cases, Fulton County, Georgia District Attorney Fani Willis' election interference/RICO case, and then-Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s hush money case. Trump was convicted on 34 criminal counts in Bragg's case, but all four cases were doomed when he won the 2024 election.In an official statement, American Oversight Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said the group "will not allow the president and his guard dogs to bury information that belongs to the American people."

Chukwu stated, "For more than a year, Judge Cannon has kept the Special Counsel's final report under seal, long after any legitimate claims by Trump's co-conspirators expired. By blocking our effort to challenge her gag order, the court handed President Trump a roadmap for burying the report through delay and procedural gamesmanship."


From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

'An offense in Canada': Trump may be legally barred from traveling to the G7

The 2025 G7 Summit is scheduled for June 15-17 in Kananaskis, Alberta in Canada. And despite tensions between him and Canada because of his trade war, Assistant White House Press Secretary Jennifer Jacobs says he will be there.

In a May 22 post on X, formerly Twitter, Jacobs wrote, "Trump plans to go to the G7 in Canada next month, @PressSec says."

But according to The Conversation, Trump may not be able to enter Canada legally because of his criminal record.

READ MORE: 'Opposite of apartheid': Here are 5 bombshell moments from Trump’s meeting with SA president

In 2024, Trump was facing four criminal indictments, although only one of them went to trial: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s hush money/falsified business records case. And a jury found him guilty on 34 criminal counts.

In an article published by The Conversation on July 2, 2024, The Conversation delved into Canadian law and the implications for Trump.

The Conversation noted, "So how does Canadian law respond to a potential American president who’s a convicted felon?.... At first blush, Canadian immigration law provides an easy answer: anyone convicted of a criminal offence is inadmissible. But there are several reasons why this simple rule may not prevail for Donald Trump."

The Conversation continued, "In the case of convictions outside of Canada, the first step to consider is whether the offence in question is also an offence in Canada. Trump has been convicted of 34 felony counts, though he's pushing for the convictions to be overturned in the wake of the United States Supreme Court's ruling that granted him immunity from prosecution for acts he committed while president."

READ MORE: 'Gonna look kind of bad': ABC News head told 'The View' hosts to tone down Trump criticism

In its Trump v. the United States decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents enjoy immunity from prosecution for "official" acts committed while in office but not for unofficial acts.

The four criminal indictments Trump was facing in 2024 ended when he narrowly defeated Democratic nominee Kamala Harris in the United States' 2024 election. Then-special counsel Jack Smith asked Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss his federal election interference case against Trump, citing the U.S. Department of Justice's (DOJ) policy against prosecuting a sitting president—although he didn't believe the High Court's immunity ruling invalidated his two cases against Trump.

READ MORE: Is every nationalist a potential fascist? A historian weighs in

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

'They are not backing down': Expert reveals core of Jack Smith’s now-unsealed Trump filing

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan officially unsealed Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith's massive filing justifying his superseding indictment of former President Donald Trump. Experts are currently digging deep into the 165-page document to glean the most damning portions.

During a segment with MSNBC host Katy Tur on Wednesday evening, Lisa Rubin – a legal analyst for the network — opined that Smith's filing had a unique focus on tweets the former president sent on January 6, 2021 and during his lame-duck period after losing the 2020 election. Rubin pointed out that Smith is appearing to make his case to Chutkan that the actions he's prosecuting the former president for are not protected by the absolute broad immunity for official presidential acts the Supreme Court put in place this summer.

"I want to bring you back to the Supreme Court's ruling for a second because they say that the president has broad authority to communicate with the American public as the president, but there may be instances where, for example, using his tweets he really is functioning as a candidate and not as president," she said. "They are not backing down from ... those tweets."

READ MORE: Legal expert: 'New and important evidence' expected to come out of Jack Smith's latest proposal

Trump's four-count felony indictment in the Washington, D.C. election interference case was suddenly thrown a curveball by the July 2024 Trump v. United States case, in which the Supreme Court's six-member conservative majority agreed that Trump was immune from prosecution for all "official acts." However, the Court left it up to lower court judges like Chutkan to decide how to define "official acts."

Trump's attorneys are arguing that all actions Trump took during his lame-duck period are protected by the decision, including his participation in the January 6, 2021 rally that preceded the deadly insurrection. But as Rubin pointed out, Smith went into great detail in his dossier to explain why Trump was not immune from prosecution in this particular instance.

"One of the reasons that the government is fixated on that is because they want to show not only what Donald Trump knew and what he was ingesting at that time, which may account for the minute-by-minute recitation of what Fox News was airing, but that in his communications he wasn't doing anything official," Rubin said. "Again, we are talking about January 6th, a date on which the current president of the United States has absolutely no official role when it comes to elections."

Smith's latest (heavily redacted) filing is a summary of witness testimony against Trump, with names of most witnesses — with the exception of former Vice President Mike Pence — blacked out. And as former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner predicted in August, the dossier that Chutkan just unsealed includes a lot of previously undisclosed evidence the DOJ gathered relating to the former president's efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

READ MORE: Jack Smith to reveal new Trump evidence 'the American people do not yet know about': expert

Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney highlighted one example of a supposed unofficial act Trump took as a candidate instead of as president that Smith described in his document. Roughly a week after the 2020 election, the former president put his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, in charge of his campaign's legal team "because he was willing to lie about the election results." Giuliani was ultimately disbarred in both New York and Washington, D.C. for his repeated election denialism.

Other legal reporters combing through the document were able to discern the identities of some of the redacted names due to the context of the document. On the social media platform Bluesky, Law Dork newsletter publisher Chris Geidner found that "Person 1" was likely former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. He identified Giuliani as "CC1" as the person Trump put in charge of his campaign's legal arm.

Watch Rubin's segment below, or by clicking this link.



READ MORE: 'About damn time': Experts celebrate Giuliani losing law license in DC for election denial

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

'Especially problematic': Trump lawyers want evidence hidden from public until after election

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump are now asking U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to keep additional documents submitted by federal prosecutors sequestered from public view until after the November election.

Law & Crime reported Thursday that the ex-president is specifically asking Judge Chutkan to keep a stay in place on the public release of the appendix included in Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith's dossier that was unsealed earlier this month. That appendix includes a wealth of redacted evidence that was scheduled to go public today.

Trump's lawyers argue that the stay should remain until November 14, so the defense can have enough time to assemble their own appendix justifying their claims to absolute immunity. The deadline defense lawyers requested is notably nine days after voters head to the polls.

READ MORE: 'They are not backing down': Expert reveals core of Jack Smith's now-unsealed Trump filing

In his official response, Trump's defense counsel said the delay was necessary in order to not improperly influence the upcoming election and allow "both sides" to have their cases heard in the media at the same time. Attorneys further argued that "the public has been poisoned by a one-sided prosecutorial narrative."

"If, as here, a prosecutor, during a highly contested political campaign, is granted leave to submit enormous filings publicly examining a President’s decision-making while in office, future Presidents will be far more reluctant to take the ‘bold and unhesitating action’ required of them,” Trump's lawyers wrote in their filing. “This is true even if ordinary procedures are followed, with the President making the first submission, but it is especially problematic where neither the Constitution, nor the rules of criminal procedure based on our founding principles, have been followed, thus wrongly allowing the prosecution to file first, in anticipation of a motion to dismiss."

Law & Crime cited a tweet from Eric Columbus — a DOJ appointee under former President Barack Obama — in which he posited that this filing was a prelude to Trump asking the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to step in on his behalf. The Court already handed Trump a big win in its 6-3 Trump v. United States ruling in July, which granted the former president absolute immunity for all "official acts" while in office.

"This filing (which Judge Chutkan will not grant) is a prelude to Trump seeking relief from SCOTUS," Columbus tweeted. "Look for more filings today, maybe an intermediate stop at the DC Circuit (where he won’t win)."

READ MORE: Legal expert: 'New and important evidence' expected to come out of Jack Smith's latest proposal

While SCOTUS granted presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts, judges left it up to the lower district and appellate courts to determine what ultimately constitutes an official act. In Smith's 165-page dossier, he argued that the actions he is prosecuting Trump for do not fall under the "official acts" umbrella, and that his attempts to overturn the 2020 election were done in his capacity as a candidate.

Smith had to retool his initial four-count indictment in the D.C. election interference case in order to comply with SCOTUS' immunity ruling. Those federal felony charges against the ex-president for allegedly obstructing Congress' certification of election results still remain intact. However, Smith's 37-count indictment has been thrown out by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon (whom Trump appointed to the bench in 2020) in July. Smith appealed that decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has ruled against Cannon twice in the past.

Click here to read Law & Crime's report in its entirety. And click here to read Trump's latest filing in full.

READ MORE: Jack Smith to reveal new Trump evidence 'the American people do not yet know about': expert

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

Jack Smith may still be able to reveal 'absolutely devastating' evidence he has on Trump

Donald Trump was facing four criminal indictments when he narrowly won the 2024 presidential election, and two of those criminal investigations were led by then-Department of Justice (DOJ) Special Counsel Jack Smith. Smith, citing DOJ's longstanding policy against prosecuting a sitting president, asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss his election interference case — and she granted that request "without prejudice."

Smith, however, wasn't saying that his election case and his Mar-a-Lago/classified documents case (which was assigned to Judge Aileen Cannon) lacked merit — only that he was obligated to honor DOJ policy. And he discussed the cases during a closed-door House Judiciary Committee hearing that was attended by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who is the committee's ranking member.

In an article published on January 7, The New Republic's Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling stresses that Smith may still have a lot to say about the two Trump-related cases he prosecuted during former President Joe Biden's administration.

Houghtaling reports: "The American public may still have the opportunity to hear former special counsel Jack Smith's case against Donald Trump…. The investigator was invited by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan for a closed-door session before Congress last month, giving Smith a platform that top Democrats surprisingly claim was the most advantageous to eventually charge Trump."

The New Republic writer observed that Raskin offered some key takeaways on Smith's closed-door testimony suring a Tuesday, January 6 appearance on MS NOW.

"I left that closed-door deposition of Jack Smith, and I said that Chairman Jordan's decision to do it behind closed doors was the best decision he ever made in his life, because it was absolutely devastating for Donald Trump and for those who still want to try to pretend as if he wasn't guilty of these things," Raskin told MS NOW. "He was clearly guilty of these things."

Raskin believes it would be "devastating" for Trump if the public heard the extent of Smith's testimony during the closed-door hearing.

Raskin told MS NOW: "What's allowed (Trump) to escape, you know, Houdini-like, is the Roberts Court and the fact that he's been able to manipulate the levers of power to keep himself going. I mean, if he put, you know, a fraction of that energy into trying to actually do something for the American people, we might be in a different position in America today…. But he has been able to stay afloat, even as it's overwhelmingly clear that he engaged in an attempt to defraud the United States, disrupt this federal proceeding, and massively violate the voting rights of all Americans by stealing an election. He wasn't trying to stop election fraud. He was trying to commit election fraud for several months."

Read Ellie Quinlan Houghtaling's full New Republic article at this link.

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

Judge Chutkan will allow Jack Smith to put on a 'mini-trial' after immunity ruling: expert

Appearing with her colleague Alex Witt on MSNBC, former prosecutor and host of her own show, Katie Phang made her prediction on how the Supreme Court will rule on Donald Trump's bid for absolute immunity on Monday and how Judge Tanya Chutkan will proceed afterward.

According to Phang, she expects the nation's highest court — which has been dragging its feet on the highly anticipated ruling — will instruct Chutkan to define which acts Trump committed fall under presidential powers and which ones are outside the scope of protection.

Phang suggested Chutkan would jump into the case with both feet immediately after all of the delays.

'"I believe, as do others, that Judge Chutkan will be told she needs to make a determination as to what conduct that is alleged in the indictment is quote 'official acts as president' and what conduct is quote 'unofficial acts.' The unofficial acts do not get the immunity."

"I'm a believer and I've been pushing this idea you will see an evidentiary hearing that Judge Chutkan will do and I think very quickly, she's going to put the pedal to the metal on this," she added.

"And the evidence you'll be hearing will be an opportunity for special counsel Jack Smith to present the entirety of the indictment because I believe the indictment against Donald Trump is all unofficial acts; none of that was kosher, none of it was supposed to happen, it was all illegal."

"You will see special counsel Jack Smith put on what I'm going to call a mini-trial through the course of the evidentiary hearing so Americans can hear what Donald Trump did."

Watch below or at the link:



From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

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

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."

READ MORE: Jack Smith makes case for Trump prosecution as election draws closer and closer

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.

READ MORE: 'Pared away all official conduct': Expert says Jack Smith's new indictment is immunity-proof

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.

READ MORE: Legal expert: 'New and important evidence' expected to come out of Jack Smith's latest proposal

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

New Jack Smith 'mystery' doc includes 'hidden' Trump evidence not yet made public: report

Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith appears to have new evidence against former President Donald Trump in his Washington, D.C. election interference case.

According to Newsweek, Smith submitted the "mystery document" to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ahead of the September 5 hearing in the District of Columbia federal court as part of his superseding indictment of the ex-president. The publication reported that the contents of the document remain "hidden from the public and Trump's lawyers" as of Wednesday, with the new evidence under seal in accordance with federal laws pertaining to classified material.

The new document is titled "Government's Classified, Ex Parte, In Camera, and Under Seal Notice Regarding Classified Discovery," which Newsweek noted is a formal way of saying the DOJ is submitting classified information to the court that has yet to be unsealed due to national security reasons. Judge Chutkan will review the document privately away from both the DOJ and Trump's attorneys.

READ MORE: Jack Smith to reveal new Trump evidence 'the American people do not yet know about': expert

Trump was arraigned in absentia on Wednesday on the new superseding indictment Smith previously filed. His attorneys entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, and sought to prevent further action in the case prior to the November election. In his live-tweeting of the hearing, Politico legal correspondent Kyle Cheney observed that Trump lawyer John Lauro protested against a supposed "rush to judgment," which Chutkan laughed off, saying: "This case has been pending for over a year. We're hardly sprinting to the finish line."

The special counsel previously indicated in a joint status report filed with the defense that he would soon be submitting new evidence to the court as part of the updated indictment that included evidence against the 45th president of the United States not yet known to the public.

Smith revised the original four-count felony indictment following the Supreme Court's ruling in the Trump v. United States case, in which the conservative majority — including three Trump appointees — ruled that presidents have absolute broad immunity from criminal prosecution for all "official acts." However, the Court left it up to lower court judges like Chutkan to determine what constitutes an "official" act and what does not.

The former president's attorneys argue that Trump's actions on and leading up to January 6 took place while he was in the lame duck period of his presidency, that they are to be viewed as official acts and should be included under SCOTUS' immunity guidelines. Smith contended in his new superseding indictment that because Trump's January 6, 2021 rally outside the U.S. Capitol was paid for by his campaign rather than with tax dollars, it was an unofficial act of a private citizen.

READ MORE: 'Pared away all official conduct': Expert says Jack Smith's new indictment is immunity-proof

During the hearing, Chutkan said it would likely be "months" before the case went to trial. But that's assuming Trump loses the election. Should he win, he could have his appointed attorney general dismiss both ongoing federal cases against him — including both the D.C. case and the classified documents indictment in the Southern District of Florida.

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon — the Trump-appointed judge overseeing that case — dismissed the charges entirely in July, and argued in her filing that Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' argument that Jack Smith was not constitutionally appointed rendered his indictment null and void. Smith appealed her decision to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has already overturned Cannon's rulings in the past.

Click here to read Newsweek's full report.

READ MORE: Sonia Sotomayor: Supreme Court just gave presidents power to assassinate political rivals

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web

Jack Smith to reveal new Trump evidence 'the American people do not yet know about': expert

A 10-page joint filing that Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith submitted late Friday night with former President Donald Trump's legal team in his Washington, D.C. election interference case was mostly unremarkable, aside from one specific line.

Politico reported that Smith maintains he is ready to move forward with the case "promptly at any time the Court deems appropriate," and emphasized to Judge Tanya Chutkan that it was up to her how to proceed. But as former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner observed during a Saturday segment on MSNBC, the initially dry joint status report becomes much more interesting given Smith's suggestion that previously unknown evidence against Trump may soon come to light.

"There is one what I would call money line, and it's on page two," Kirschner said, before pulling out a hard copy of the brief and reading from it directly.

READ MORE: 'Pared away all official conduct': Expert says Jack Smith's new indictment is immunity-proof

"Here is what I would call the money line: [Smith] says that the government, the prosecutors propose that it will file a brief in which we will explain why immunity does not apply to the categories of allegations in the superseding, the new indictment ... 'or additional unplanned categories of evidence that the government intends to introduce in trial and will put in this brief,'" Kirschner said as he read the document on-air.

"What does that mean?" Kirschner continued. "Jack smith just said, 'Judge Chutkan, I'm going to put lots of other information and evidence about Donald Trump's crimes and conduct so you have it all. So you can make a decision about whether each thing Donald Trump did was official or unofficial, might enjoy immunity, or should not enjoy immunity.'"

As Kirschner noted, the Trump v. United States decision the Supreme Court issued in July granted presidents absolute broad criminal immunity for all "official acts." This handed Trump a big victory in his ongoing effort to throw out the indictment Jack Smith handed down in response to the ex-president's actions on January 6, 2021 and in the lead-up to it. But the Court left it up to lower court judges (like Chutkan) to determine what constitutes an "official act" and what does not.

Prior to the Friday filing, Smith unveiled a superseding indictment in the D.C. election interference case, which is the first major development in the case since the immunity ruling threw a wrench into the gears of the two federal criminal cases against the 45th president of the United States. That indictment was stripped of all language referring to Trump as a former president, and emphasized that the January 6 rally Trump held in D.C. prior to the storming of the U.S. Capitol was paid for by Trump's campaign, making the case that he was not acting in his official capacities as president at the time.

READ MORE: Experts reveal how Jack Smith's Trump indictment can survive Judge Cannon's 'bonkers' ruling

During his interview, Kirschner noted that after Smith's hint of new evidence, Trump's lawyers spent more than seven pages putting in "a bunch of nonsense" that was "designed to delay the case." He theorized that this is because "they don't want any of that new evidence and information coming out before the election or at any other time, if they can help it."

"What remains to be seen is when will Judge Chutkan say 'okay, we're going to litigate this issue. I want the briefs.' Will they be September, will they be October?" Kirschner said. "Because those briefs, according to what Jack Smith said, are likely to contain a whole bunch of information that the grand jury knows about Donald Trump's crimes, but that the American people do not yet know about."

Watch the video of Kirschner's comments below, or by clicking this link.



READ MORE: Sonia Sotomayor: Supreme Court just gave presidents power to assassinate political rivals

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
@2026 - AlterNet Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. - "Poynter" fonts provided by fontsempire.com.