WASHINGTON (AP) — Special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday filed under seal a legal document that prosecutors say would contain sensitive and new evidence in the case accusing former President Donald Trump of plotting to overthrow the 2020 election he had lost, to be undone.
The brief, filed over the Trump team’s objections, aims to defend a revised and stripped-down indictment that prosecutors filed last month to comply with a Supreme Court ruling that granted broad immunity to former presidents.
Prosecutors said earlier this month that they planned to present a “detailed factual offering,” including grand jury transcripts and multiple pieces of evidence, to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in hopes of convincing her that the charges in the indictment are not may be rejected and remain part of the case. of the case.
A spokesman for Smith’s team, Peter Carr, confirmed that prosecutors had met the 5 p.m. deadline for filing.
Although the letter is not currently accessible to the public, prosecutors have said they plan to file a redacted version that could be made available later, raising the prospect that previously unseen allegations from the case may emerge in the final weeks before the November elections could be made public. .
The Trump team strongly objected to the filing, calling it unnecessary and saying it could lead to airing unflattering details in the “sensitive” period before the election.
“The Court does not need 180 pages of ‘major assistance’ from the Special Counsel’s Office to build the record necessary to address President Trump’s presidential immunity defense,” Trump’s lawyers wrote, calling it “similar to a premature and inappropriate report from the Special Counsel.”
The order is the opening salvo in a restructured criminal case following the Supreme Court’s ruling in July that said former presidents are presumptively immune from official acts they put into office, but not immune from their private actions.
In their new complaint, Smith’s team dismissed certain allegations regarding Trump’s interactions with the Justice Department but left most of the case intact, arguing that the remaining actions — including Trump’s hectoring of his vice president, Mike Pence, to refuse to certify the count of electoral votes – do not deserve immunity protection.
Chutkan is now responsible for deciding which actions remain in the indictment, including allegations that Trump participated in a scheme to recruit fake voters in battleground states he lost, are official actions and therefore immune from prosecution or private actions.
She has acknowledged that her decisions will likely be subject to additional appeals to the Supreme Court.