By Axios | Created at 2024-09-27 11:21:17 | Updated at 2024-09-30 07:37:13
3 days ago
Special counsel Jack Smith filed a sealed legal brief in former President Trump's federal Jan. 6 case Thursday, outlining legal arguments for criminally prosecuting the Republican presidential nominee over efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Why it matters: U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan will decide whether or not to publicly release the brief containing previously unseen evidence, or a redacted version of it, and it's possible this could occur before November's presidential election.
Context: Smith in August filed a slimmed-down, superseding indictment that Trump's legal team opposes, after the conservative-majority U.S. Supreme Court ruled that presidents have immunity for "official acts."
State of play: The Supreme Court left it for Chutkan to determine whether Trump's alleged conduct in this was protected under presidential immunity.
- Trump has pleaded not guilty to all federal charges in the case — including "conspiracy to defraud" the U.S.
- The charges remain the same in the superseding indictment, though it's pared down from the original to account for the Supreme Court ruling.
- Peter Carr, a spokesperson for Smith's team, confirmed in a Thursday evening email that they had complied with Chutkan's order and filed the brief before her 5pm deadline.
- Trump's legal team wrote in a motion in opposition to Smith's filing this week, "The Court does not need 180 pages of 'great assistance' from the Special Counsel's Office to develop the record necessary to address President Trump's Presidential immunity defense."
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