by Katelynn Richardson
Special counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case falls apart under recent Supreme Court precedent, former President Donald Trump’s attorneys said Thursday.
The Supreme Court’s ruling in Fischer v. United States, which scaled back the Biden-Harris Department of Justice’s (DOJ) overbroad use of an obstruction statute designed to target corporate document shredding against Jan. 6 defendants, “fatally undermines” two counts and requires dismissing two others, Trump’s attorneys wrote.
The Fischer decision is another example of the Supreme Court applying “the rule of law to reject lawfare overreach targeting” Trump, his attorneys said, citing two other rulings from the past term rejecting state efforts to remove Trump from the ballot and finding former presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts taken in office.
“Under Fischer, the Office may not use the statute as a catchall provision to criminalize otherwise lawful activities selectively mischaracterized as obstructive by those with opposing political views,” his attorneys told Judge Tanya Chutkan.
Since the ruling, the DOJ has acknowledged the Supreme Court “severely undermined their position” in at least 100 of the 259 Jan. 6 defendants charged or convicted under the obstruction statute, the filing states.
Smith filed a massive motion Wednesday detailing his evidence against Trump, which Chutkan allowed him to file over repeated objections from Trump’s attorneys that it was politically motivated and violated typical procedure. The filing outlined why prosecutors believe their superseding indictment is not covered by the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision.
Trump’s attorneys wrote Thursday that prosecutors used “fanciful and inaccurate language to describe actions by President Trump and his advisers that are subject to Presidential immunity.”
“As President Trump will establish in his forthcoming response to the Office’s Presidential immunity submission, the challenged conduct—when described accurately, placed in context, and stripped of the Office’s misplaced rhetoric—’qualifies as official because it was undertaken to ensure the integrity and proper administration of the federal election,’” they wrote.
Trump’s attorneys are expected to file a response to Smith’s immunity motion by Nov. 7 after their request for an extension was partially granted by Chutkan.
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Katelynn Richardson is a reporter at Daily Caller News Foundation.
