A joint filing submitted late Friday by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith and former President Donald Trump’s legal team in the Washington, D.C. election interference case appeared routine at first glance, but a single line has sparked significant interest.
According to Politico, Smith stated in the filing that he is prepared to proceed with the case “promptly at any time the Court deems appropriate,” emphasizing to Judge Tanya Chutkan that the timing is in her hands. However, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner pointed out during a Saturday segment on MSNBC that the otherwise dry status report contains a “money line” suggesting that new, previously unknown evidence against Trump might soon be revealed.
Kirschner highlighted the crucial line on page two of the filing, reading it aloud: “[Smith] says that the government, the prosecutors propose that it will file a brief in which we will explain why immunity does not apply to the categories of allegations in the superseding, the new indictment … ‘or additional unplanned categories of evidence that the government intends to introduce in trial and will put in this brief.'”
This statement, Kirschner explained, indicates that Smith plans to present “lots of other information and evidence about Donald Trump’s crimes and conduct” to ensure Judge Chutkan has all the necessary details to determine whether Trump’s actions should be protected by immunity or not.
The Supreme Court’s July decision in Trump v. United States granted presidents broad criminal immunity for “official acts,” a significant victory for Trump in his efforts to dismiss the indictment related to his actions on January 6, 2021. However, the Court left the determination of what constitutes an “official act” to lower court judges like Chutkan.
Following Smith’s filing, Trump’s legal team submitted over seven pages of what Kirschner described as “a bunch of nonsense” aimed at delaying the case, likely in hopes of preventing the new evidence from coming to light before the election.
Kirschner speculated that Judge Chutkan will soon decide when to litigate these issues, with Smith’s briefs potentially revealing a “whole bunch of information that the grand jury knows about Donald Trump’s crimes, but that the American people do not yet know about.”