Former President Trump's legal team on Tuesday claimed that special counsel Jack Smith is attempting to sway the 2024 presidential election by looking to release new witness testimony and evidence related to the federal Jan. 6, 2021 case.
The GOP nominee, who has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case, said that more redactions are necessary in the brief Smith filed.
“The true motivation driving the efforts by the Special Counsel’s Office to disseminate witness statements that they previously sought to lock down is as obvious as it is inappropriate,” Trump's legal team said in a court filing on Tuesday.
“The Office wants their politically motivated manifesto to be public, contrary to the Justice Manual and longstanding DOJ norms in cases not involving President Trump, in the final weeks of the 2024 Presidential election while early voting has already begun throughout the United States.”
Trump has made similar claims before. His running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), slammed Smith’s recent superseding indictment, alleging it is “an effort to influence the election.”
Smith filed the superseding indictment in his election subversion case in late August. The indictment had the same charges but removed some elements in light of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.
The Supreme Court determined in its decision that presidents have broad immunity for actions taken as part of their duties. .
The decision to make the brief public lies with U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan.
“While the Presidential immunity filing contains few, if any, new allegations not already covered in other politically motivated and inaccurate lawfare efforts that President Trump’s opponents have improperly funded and disseminated, it is irresponsible for the prosecutors to so quickly abandon the safety and privacy interests that they previously assigned great weight in this case and in the Southern District of Florida,” Trump’s lawyers said.
“Accordingly, the Court should require the Office to make consistent redactions regarding] identity-related information and to show cause why their proposed public disclosure of voluminous purportedly sensitive witness statements will not pose risks to potential witnesses and unfairly prejudice the adjudication of this case,” they said.
