Judge unseals new Trump Jan. 6 election interference evidence
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In a newly unsealed court filing, special counsel Jack Smith provided the most detailed picture yet of his criminal case against Donald Trump for allegedly trying to overturn the 2020 election and why the former president isn’t immune from prosecution.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the case, released the filing, with minor redactions, on Wednesday.
The special counsel uses the 165-page document to make his case that Trump’s actions around the election were made in a private capacity, and not his official role as president.
The filing comes after the Supreme Court ruled this summer that presidents enjoy broad immunity for official acts while in office, but not for unofficial acts as a candidate or private citizen.
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“When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office,” the special counsel’s team writes. “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.”
A D.C. grand jury indictment accused Trump of actions that culminated in the violent siege at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. If he regains the White House, Trump is expected to direct new Justice Department leaders to drop the landmark case.
Prosecutors accuse Trump of spearheading a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election and disenfranchise millions of American voters.
“At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private criminal effort,” the special counsel writes. “In his capacity as a candidate, the defendant used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process.”
The filing offers several new details about Trump’s actions
The broad strokes of the special counsel’s allegations against Trump have long been known. The filing, though, adds some new details, including sensitive testimony from witnesses and notes taken by former Vice President Mike Pence.
It also offers some colorful details, largely designed to tie Trump to overlapping conspiracies to overturn the 2020 election.
In one section, the filing details what Trump was doing on Jan. 6, 2021, as a violent mob of his supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol. Trump, it says, settled into the the dining room off the Oval Office around 1:30 p.m. and spent the afternoon reviewing Twitter on his phone while Fox News played in the background.
At one point, a staffer rushed into the dining room to tell Trump that Pence had been rushed to a secure location because of the rioters. The staffer hoped, the filing says, that Trump would do something to ensure Pence's safety.
Instead, the document says, Trump “looked at him and said only, ‘So what?’”
The new filing also provides a closer look at Trump’s interactions with his former political aide and podcaster Steve Bannon, including a phone call the two men had the morning before the Capitol riot, the new court filing said.
Just a couple of hours later, Bannon told his podcast audience that “all hell” would break loose the following day.
Lawyers for Trump and for special counsel Jack Smith had clashed over whether the brief should be released, given its potential impact on the 2024 election, where Trump is the Republican nominee.
Ultimately, Chutkan agreed to release part of the government’s new arguments against the former president, saying the public must understand the court's eventual decision on immunity, and therefore needs access to the government's arguments.
Copyright 2024, NPR
