Trump Lawyers Raise 'Serious Problems' About Jack Smith
Prosecutor Jack Smith 's lack of disclosure is causing "serious problems" in Donald Trump 's election fraud case, the former president's lawyers have alleged.
"The Special Counsel's Office has repeatedly misstated the law and mischaracterized their discovery obligations," Trump attorneys John Lauro and Todd Blanche said in a court filing on Thursday.
Quoting Chief Justice John Roberts ' Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, the Trump lawyers say that "these are serious problems, which present 'unique risks to the effective functioning of government.'"
Trump's lawyers are currently arguing for more disclosure from the government so they can prove that Trump has immunity from large parts of the indictment, per the July 1 Supreme Court ruling, which gave Trump broad protection from prosecution.
Smith has repeatedly accused Trump's lawyers of using the disclosure process to delay the case as much as possible.
Trump was indicted in Washington, D.C, on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty and has said the case is part of a political witch hunt.
The Washington D.C. trial judge, Tanya Chutkan , is currently considering how to proceed after the Supreme Court immunity ruling.
In Thursday's filing, Trump's lawyers asked Chutkan to "reconsider and pause the current schedule until the Special Counsel's Office establishes that they are in compliance with their discovery obligations."
If granted, the application would add more details to a case that has been beset with delays.
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump's attorney as well as from Jack Smith's office on Friday.
Trump's lawyers said that Smith has been resisting their attempts to obtain documents from the office, that Smith's office "urges the Court to conclude that the prosecutors responsible for this case have no discovery obligations with respect to files at the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office—where some of the very same prosecutors worked on the investigation that led to this case."
They also alleged collusion between prosecutors and various government agencies including the National Archives and Records Administration, a government organization that sought the return of presidential records to Trump and then referred the case to the Department of Justice . That led to Trump's indictment in Florida for allegedly hoarding classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in West Palm Beach.
"For example, in February 2022, while Senior Assistant Special Counsel [Tom] Windom was still targeting President Trump from the D.C. U.S. Attorney's Office, he communicated with NARA-OIG, [National Archives and Records Administration Office of Inspector General] which is a conceded member of the prosecution team in this [Florida] case, regarding the purported 'referral' that drove the Florida investigation."
"The communication is an apt example of the overlapping nature of these entities' relationships and interactions in connection with their common objective: unjust pursuit of President Trump."
"[Smith's] Office should not be permitted to invoke bureaucratic boundaries and pretend that these relationships do not exist now that it is time to comply with President Trump's Constitutional rights," Blanche and Lauro said.
