Chief prosecutor Jack Smith is continuing to file motions in Donald Trump’s election fraud case, despite the former president’s claim that he has no right to do so.
Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, that Smith is borrowing from Trump in shaping his legal arguments to attract a large public audience.
Smith filed a motion on Wednesday asking Judge Tanya Chutkan to ban Trump from claiming that Smith and the other Department of Justice prosecutors are being directed by President Joe Biden.
“The defendant has suggested that he intends to impeach the integrity of the investigation by raising wholly false claims such as the Government’s non-existent ‘coordination with the Biden Administration’ and other empty allegations recycled from the selective and vindictive prosecution motion that he based on anonymous sources in newspaper,” Smith’s latest filing states.
He filed the motion despite a December 13 decision by Chutkan to suspend, or stay, the case until Trump’s presidential immunity claim can be heard by the Washington, D.C Court of Appeal.
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Trump was indicted on four counts of working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. It is one of four criminal cases that Trump is facing while he campaigns as frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He has also pleaded not guilty to charges in the other cases, denying any wrongdoing, and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt. Newsweek sought email comment on Friday from Donald Trump’s attorney.
Litman said Smith’s filing shows that he is borrowing from the Trump playbook.
“Trump’s whole legal strategy is a public strategy–and here he and Smith know that the filing will be devoured by press and public and put the Department of Justice’s unanswered argument into public play,” Litman wrote.
Litman, now a law lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, wrote that Trump won’t answer Smith’s motion on the merits, as he is relying on Chutkan’s stay in the case. “But he could file a motion before Chutkan asking her to order DOJ not to keep filing,” Litman wrote.
He added: “It’s actually a bit of a provocation on Smith’s part, and not quite Marquis of Queensbury rules, as the DOJ normally follows. But not clear Trump can stop it, though he’s likely to try,” Litman added.
On December 18, Trump’s lawyers wrote to Smith’s legal team warning them to stop sending them disclosure documents, which Trump’s team had been seeking before Chutkan’s stay order.
In their letter, which was filed in court, Trump’s lawyers said they would not even open the documents while the stay is in place.
They also refused to accept a draft exhibit list for the trial, which is due to begin in March.
“We do not accept the productions and will not review them. We ask that you refrain from all further attempts to impose litigation burdens on us, including through discovery or other submissions, until and unless the Court lifts the Stay Order,” they wrote in a letter to two of the prosecutors in the case, Thomas Windom and Molly Gaston.
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