Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team believes Donald Trump’s case on January 6 is quite strong, and they can get a conviction for it.
A scathing new document submitted in Washington court accuses the former president of using “deceit, trickery, or dishonest means” and argues that his conviction that he won the 2020 election is unrelated to his charges because he actively participated in election subversion, DailyMail reported. Smith submitted the paper to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., in opposition to a motion made by Trump’s attorneys to have his four-count federal election interference indictment dismissed.
Trump has attempted four times in all to have the federal indictment about his alleged interference in the 2020 presidential race dismissed in Washington, NBC News reported. In response to Trump’s assertion that he couldn’t have known his acts were criminal because others in the past had not been prosecuted for protesting election results, Smith’s team stated that “the defendant stands alone in American history” for his alleged offenses.
“The defendant also claims that he could not have known his actions were criminal because, in the past, others who have questioned, challenged, or protested election results were not prosecuted,” the special counsel wrote. “No other president has engaged in conspiracy and obstruction to overturn valid election results and illegitimately retain power,” Smith’s office said in the filing, per CNBC .
BREAKING: Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team brings down the hammer on Donald Trump and his shady lawyers for trying to get his election subversion trial dismissed as “meritless.” The prosecutors went fully gloves off this time… “The defendant stands alone in American history… pic.twitter.com/uvuGksCsTY
— Occupy Democrats (@OccupyDemocrats) November 7, 2023
Trump’s lawyers also filed a move to strike “inflammatory” references to the Jan. 6, 2021, violence from his criminal indictment on four offenses relating to his alleged efforts to obstruct Joe Biden’s presidential win. Trump’s motion, according to senior assistant special counsel Molly Gaston, was a “meritless effort” to avoid claims that he was responsible for events at the Capitol that day.
“Indeed, that day was the culmination of the defendant’s criminal conspiracies to overturn the legitimate results of the presidential election,” she wrote.
A tidbit after re-reading the flurry of filings last night in the Trump election subversion case: This certainly sounds like the govt plans to call witnesses who will testify (as many could) that they attacked cops & breached the Capitol on J6 because Trump urged them to fight. pic.twitter.com/JxaPXKFMWz
— Alan Feuer (@alanfeuer) November 7, 2023
According to Jack Smith’s office, the riot happened following weeks of false assertions by Trump with no basis that President Joe Biden had won the 2020 election due to rampant voting fraud. According to Smith’s office, Trump “promoted and extolled the events of that day.” While the rioting was going on, the defendant told the rioters that they were “very special” and that they were loved.
“In the years since he has championed rioters as ‘great patriots; and proclaimed January 6 a beautiful day,” the filing said. “The Court should recognize the defendant’s motion for what it is: a meritless effort to evade the indictment’s clear allegations that the defendant is responsible for the events at the Capitol on January 6,” prosecutors wrote.
Trump, the leading Republican presidential nominee for the 2024 presidential elections, has pleaded not guilty in the election subversion case, which is slated to go to trial in late March.