Special counsel Jack Smith appeared in the Palm Beach U.S. District Court on Friday to hear claims from Donald Trump and his allies that Smith's appointment as prosecutor in the former president's classified documents case was unconstitutional.
Detailing the hours-long courtroom hearing, legal analyst Lisa Rubin said that if one believes that no one is truly above the law, there isn't much justification for it.
"This is a motion that could be decided on the papers, even if, as Judge Cannon seems to believe, this is a novel legal argument that deserves her full attention," said Rubin.
What she said she struggled to understand is why Cannon was allowing so much time to the matter. The hearings will go into next week.
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"It's really like a day and a half of hearings just on the issue of whether [Smith] was constitutionally appointed," said Rubin. "I'm wrestling with, why have those two days of hearings when, as the Trump people themselves say in a June 11th filing, this is just a legal argument."
She noted that the Trump campaign is using the court filing to make unfounded allegations about Smith and the case itself.
One filing reads: "President Trump has, in fact, been injured by the fact that the attorney general unleashed Smith as a Biden campaign surrogate to try to harm President Trump's campaign by any means necessary."
Rubin said there's zero evidence of that, and points out that Trump's team provided none in the filing.
"They seem to be using this Jack Smith was unlawfully appointed argument as a vehicle for saying that Jack Smith is a Trojan horse for the Biden campaign," Rubin said.
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Trump’s lawyer argues Jack Smith is 'a Trojan Horse for the Biden campaign': analyst youtu.be
