The Supreme Court shook up the Justice Department's prosecution of several January 6 defendants on Friday with a ruling that they couldn't be charged with obstruction simply for rioting at the Capitol — and former President Donald Trump is trying to capitalize on the ruling with a motion to have the charges against him in special counsel Jack Smith's election conspiracy case dismissed.
But that's probably not going to work, former Nixon White House Counsel John Dean told CNN's Brianna Keilar.
"In this particular case of Trump, if he is able to get something dismissed here, the political impact of that, how he is going to puff that up?" asked Keilar. "That's going to be huge. I mean, what do you think about that?"
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"I think it's very unlikely he's going to get dismissed," said Dean. "It's a very limited ruling. It's been over-read and overplayed in the media so far, people haven't really gone to the granular level of looking at the impact of this. And it's going to be very nominal, even on those who have pled guilty."
"For example, many of them had in their plea that if this ruling went against the existing law, that would not change their status," Dean continued. "So they could be charged again. So there's a lot of anticipation this could come down, this has been out there during the prosecution of many of these a January 6 cases. Jack Smith was certainly aware of it when he filed his indictment, and I think his indictment is going to withstand any test."
Ultimately, he said, 'we'll see, but that's where I think the consensus is going to fall."
"This is not a really a constitutional-based case," Dean added. "It's a statutory interpretation where some justices rely on their approach to interpret statutes others rely on their experience in reading of the statute. So I think that's why you had the very practical difference in the, not being a straight partisan decision in this instance."
Watch the video below or at the link.
John Dean on Trump's bid to have election charges thrown out youtu.be
