The judge in Donald Trump's election subversion case released a brief from special counsel Jack Smith.
Smith said Trump was acting as a private candidate as he worked to overturn the results of the 2020 election, not in his capacity as president.
Trump said the filing should not have been released so close to the election, calling it a "hit job."
The judge overseeing the election subversion case against former President Donald Trump released a partially redacted legal brief on Wednesday, just weeks ahead of the 2024 election.
It’s the latest move by special counsel Jack Smith and his team to prosecute Trump after the Supreme Court’s July ruling on presidential immunity affected the case. In the filing, Smith’s team said Trump’s claims that he is immune because his actions after the election were official presidential actions are “not so.”
“Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one. Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted — a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.”
The partially redacted filing released by Judge Tanya Chutkan details alleged interactions between Trump and several “private co-conspirators,” including his then-Vice President Mike Pence, attorneys, political operatives, campaign advisers, etc., following his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
“At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private criminal effort. In his capacity as a candidate, the defendant used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process,” the filing reads. “The defendant knew his fraud claims were false because he continued to make those claims even after his close advisors — acting not in an official capacity but in a private or campaign-related capacity — told him they were not true.”
Following the release of the filing, Trump posted on social media, calling the filing’s release, a “hit job” and an interference in the election in which he is the Republican presidential candidate.
“Democrats are Weaponizing the Justice Department against me because they know I am WINNING, and they are desperate to prop up their failing Candidate, Kamala Harris,” Trump said in his post on Wednesday.
“The DOJ pushed out this latest ‘hit job’ today because JD Vance humiliated Tim Walz last night in the Debate. The DOJ has become nothing more than an extension of Joe’s, and now Kamala’s, Campaign. This is egregious PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT, and should not have been released right before the Election,” he added.
Trump’s legal team had previously tried to prohibit the document’s release as it contains most of the evidence Smith’s team has against Trump in the election subversion case.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, said the filing was “falsehood-ridden” and “unconstitutional,” according to CBS News.
“This entire case is a partisan, unconstitutional witch hunt that should be dismissed entirely, together with all of the remaining Democrat hoaxes,” Cheung said.