Judge unseals key files in special counsel’s election case against Trump

U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday unsealed a key filing in special counsel Jack Smith’s election case against former President Trump.

Chutkan unsealed Smith’s 165-page file after the special counsel filed the document outlining the case and alleged evidence he plans to use in an eventual trial against Trump.

Trump pleaded not guilty to all of Smith’s charges against him.

Trump himself hit back at Smith on Wednesday, calling the case interference in the 2024 election.

“Democrats are arming the Justice Department against me because they know I WIN and they are desperate to prop up their failed candidate Kamala Harris,” Trump posted on his Truth Social. “The DOJ dropped this latest ‘hit’ today because JD Vance humiliated Tim Walz in the debate last night.”

Trump said the DOJ “has become nothing more than an extension of Joe’s and now Kamala’s campaign.”

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“This is egregious prosecutorial misconduct and should not have been made public right before the election,” Trump said. “The Democratic Party is turning America into a third world country that seeks to censor, harass and intimidate its political opponents. What they have done to our justice system is one of the greatest tragedies of all time.”

The former president added that the Democratic Party is “guilty of the worst election interference in American history.”

“They are trying to DESTROY OUR DEMOCRACY by allowing millions of people to enter our country illegally. They are determined to stop us from taking back the White House, sealing the border and MAKING AMERICA GREAT AGAIN. BUT THEY WILL FAIL, AND WE WILL. “SAVE OUR NATION!” Trump posted.

Trump also called Smith “deranged” and said that he, the “Harris-Biden Justice Department and the Washington, D.C.-based Radical Left Democrats” are “HIGHLY OBSESSED” with continuing to use the Justice Department as a weapon to stay in power .

“‘TRUMP’ is dominating the election cycle and leading in the polls, and the radical Democrats throughout the Deep State are completely ‘unhinged.'” This entire case is a partisan, unconstitutional witch hunt that should be dismissed in its entirety, just like the Florida case was rejected!” said Trump.

Trump was charged for the second time in the election subversion case brought by special counsel Jack Smith

The Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that a president is protected from prosecution for official acts.

Smith then had to file another indictment against Trump and revise the charges to follow the Supreme Court’s ruling. The new indictment retained the previous criminal charges but narrowed and restated the allegations against Trump following the Supreme Court’s ruling that granted broad immunity to former presidents.

In the new indictment, Trump also pleaded not guilty to all charges.

In the filing unsealed Wednesday, Smith lays out a “factual argument” alleging that Trump “resorted to crime to attempt to remain in office” after he lost the 2020 presidential election.

“With private co-conspirators, the defendant embarked on a series of increasingly desperate schemes to overturn the legitimate election results in seven states he lost – Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,” Smith wrote.

“His efforts included lying to state officials to get them to ignore actual vote counts, forging fraudulent electoral votes in target states, and attempting to recruit Vice President Michael R. Pence, in his role as President of the Senate, to the job to obstruct Congress’ certification of the election using the defendant’s fraudulent electoral votes, and when all else had failed, an angry crowd of supporters were led to the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, to prevent Congress’s certification.

Smith claims that “the core of this effort was deception” and alleges that Trump and his co-conspirators were engaged in a conspiracy to interfere with the federal government’s function by which the nation collects and counts election results, which are enshrined in the Constitution and election law is set Count Act (ECA); a conspiracy to obstruct the official process by which Congress certifies the legitimate results of the presidential election; and a conspiracy against the right of millions of Americans to vote and have their votes counted.”

Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung told Fox News Digital that the release of the “false-laden, unconstitutional J6 letter immediately after Tim Walz’s disastrous debate performance is another blatant attempt by the Harris-Biden regime to undermine American democracy and insert itself into… to interfere in this election.”

“The deranged Jack Smith and the radical Democrats of Washington DC are determined to use the Justice Department as a weapon to stay in power,” Cheung said. “President Trump is dominating and radical Democrats across the Deep State are panicking.

“This entire case is a partisan, unconstitutional witch hunt that should be dismissed in its entirety along with ALL other Democratic hoaxes.”

In the filing, Smith lays out his findings and claims that people close to Trump tried to tell him that the claims were all “bull—.”

Smith describes conversations between an unnamed personal attorney for Trump and the former president. That lawyer reportedly told Trump that the campaign had “investigated his allegations of fraud and even hired outside experts to do so, but could find no support for them.”

Trump trial postponed beyond Election Day due to Jack Smith investigation

“He told the defendant that if the campaign brought these claims to court, they would be butchered because the claims were all ‘nonsense,'” the filing says. Smith claims a lawyer discussed with Trump the investigation and “exposures” of all significant claims.

Smith also details alleged interactions between Trump and Pence in the days after the election.

Smith describes a phone call between Pence and Trump on November 7, 2020, in which Pence allegedly “tried to encourage Trump as a friend” by reminding him that he had “breathed new life into a dying political party.”

Smith also describes a private lunch between Trump and Pence on November 12, 2020, where Pence allegedly gave Trump a “face-saving option.” According to the filing, that option was “not to give in but to acknowledge that the process is over.”

Smith also described another private lunch between Trump and Pence on November 16, 2020, where Pence allegedly tried to encourage Trump to accept the election results and run again in 2024. Trump reportedly said at the time, “I’m not doing that.” You know, 2024 is so far away.

Smith describes another private lunch between the two, where Pence reportedly “encouraged” Trump “not to look at the election as a loss – just a break.”

Smith wrote that after that lunch, Trump allegedly asked Pence in the Oval Office, “What do you think we should do?”

Pence reportedly said: “Having exhausted all legal avenues in the courts and in Congress and still failing, [the defendant] should ‘bow down’.”

Meanwhile, Smith claims a White House aide who traveled with Trump was heard telling his family members, “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell.”

Smith claims Trump “was aware that there was no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Arizona within a week of the election” and claimed Trump also “knew early on that his claims of voter fraud in Georgia were false.” “.

Smith claims that “none of the allegations or evidence is protected by presidential immunity” and argues that Trump’s “plan was a private plan.”

“He made extensive use of private actors and his campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and acted in a private capacity as a candidate for office,” Smith alleged. “However, to the limited extent that the superseding indictment and evidence presented reflect official conduct, the government may rebut the presumption of immunity because reliance on that conduct in this prosecution does not pose a threat of interference with the authority or functions of the executive branch .” .”

Last month, Chutkan said she would not hold Trump’s trial on the allegations arising from Smith’s Jan. 6 investigation until after the 2024 presidential election. She set a deadline for responses and documents from federal prosecutors and Trump’s legal team of November 7th – after Election Day.

Fox News’ Bill Mears and David Spunt contributed to this report.

Original source of the article: Judge unseals key files in special counsel’s election case against Trump