Serious legal business this afternoon that’s scorched the InterWebs (info via The New York Times):
Made public by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington, the 165-page brief was partly redacted but expansive, adding details to the already extensive record of how Mr. Trump lost the race but attempted nonetheless to cling to power.
The brief from the prosecution team led by the special counsel, Jack Smith, asserts that there is ample evidence that Mr. Trump’s efforts to remain in office were those of a desperate losing candidate rather than official acts of a president that would be considered immune from prosecution under a landmark Supreme Court ruling this summer.
“The defendant asserts that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it entailed official conduct,” prosecutors wrote. “Not so. Although the defendant was the incumbent president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one.”
And, of course, wrinkled the thin skin of the T-Rump:
Trump didn’t like Jack Smith’s filing. pic.twitter.com/u9kNgTCUMH
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 2, 2024
Despite the shitty cloud covering his entire being, I can understand the T-Rump’s indignation at Jack Smith. Pretty loaded to bear from all that I’ve read this afternoon, going from the Times, Washington Post, NPR, Politico, and on and on — a lot of it is stuff already known, but not seen in legal documents. I’m waiting anxiously for Marcy Wheeler’s analysis, as she’s supposedly reading the report as I write this.
Meanwhile, the blast:
BREAKING: Judge CHUTKAN has unsealed Jack Smith's 165-page redacted motion re presidential immunity. Read it here: https://t.co/ps1kPgsNUa
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) October 2, 2024
Easily-read piece, and to digest — details per the Guardian:
The 165-page filing is probably the last opportunity for prosecutors to detail their case against Trump before the 5 November election given there will not be a trial before Trump faces the Democratic vice-president, Kamala Harris.
Prosecutors laid out details including an allegation that a White House staffer heard Trump tell family members that it did not matter if he won or lost the election, “you still have to fight like hell”.
The new filing cites previously unknown accounts offered by Trump’s closest aides to paint a portrait of an “increasingly desperate” president who, while losing his grip on the White House, “used deceit to target every stage of the electoral process”.
“So what?” the filing quotes Trump as telling an aide after being alerted that his vice-president, Mike Pence, was in potential danger after a crowd of violent supporters stormed the US Capitol on January 6.
“The details don’t matter,” Trump said, when told by an adviser that a lawyer who was mounting his legal challenges would not be able to prove the false allegations in court, the filing states.
The filing includes details of conversations between Trump and Pence, including a private lunch the two had on 12 November 2020, in which Pence “reiterated a face-saving option” for Trump, telling him: “Don’t concede but recognize the process is over,” according to prosecutors.
In another private lunch days later, Pence urged Trump to accept the results of the election and run again in 2024.
“I don’t know, 2024 is so far off,” Trump told him, according to the filing.
But Trump “disregarded” Pence “in the same way he disregarded dozens of court decisions that unanimously rejected his and his allies’ legal claims, and that he disregarded officials in the targeted states – including those in his own party – who stated publicly that he had lost and that his specific fraud allegations were false,” prosecutors wrote.
“Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one,” Smith’s team wrote, adding: “When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office.”
In the right now today isn’t that ‘so far off,‘ he said in lying time.
Just further in perspective:
That’s some lede, via @politico:@kyledcheney https://t.co/1PloqIT1Pg pic.twitter.com/PXuGBcuINF
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla) October 2, 2024
We wait for additional shit, which I’m sure is coming forth later tonight and tomorrow. This is far from over.
Legal beagle SCOTUS saying:
Immunity as an asshole, riot inciter piece-of-shit, or not, yet here we are once again…
(Illustration out front is of a New York state high-school student exhibit: ‘The piece was displayed during student-driven art show at Shenendehowa High School. It consisted of at least 12 identical black-and-white pictures of Donald Trump. There was also a sign above the pictures that read, “Draw on Me.” Using markers from the art classroom, Isome students opted to scribble critical messages and profanities on the pictures‘ — and found here.)