Donald Trump’s actions to overturn his election loss were “fundamentally” a private endeavor, the special counsel argued.
Former President Donald Trump was “fundamentally” acting as a private candidate for office and not as president of the United States when he sought to overturn his 2020 election loss, special counsel Jack Smith’s team argued in a filing Wednesday that revealed new details of the scheme at the heart of Trump’s federal election interference case.
The filing asserts that Trump knew that the claims he was spreading about the 2020 election were lies, with Smith’s team arguing that Trump didn’t believe his own falsehoods but instead spread them as part of his broader scheme to stay in power.
As officers were being brutally assaulted at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, Smith’s team says, Trump was scrolling Twitter, according to an analysis by an FBI expert that is among the revelations in the new filing. Smith’s team says a future trial would feature testimony from the FBI forensic expert.
“The phone’s activity logs show that the defendant was using his phone, and in particular, using the Twitter application, consistently throughout the day after he returned from the Ellipse speech,” Smith’s team wrote.
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It wasn’t just Trump. Entire Republican Party and conservative “think tanks” like Heritage Foundation were/are in lockstep with him
The significance here is the recent supreme court ruling that presidents have presumptive immunity for things they do officially while president, supposedly so they aren’t worried by a silly thing like the law when they’re trying to “be bold” or whatever. “Officially” is left very loosely defined, making almost any act potentially official and therefore immune.
Smith’s claim here is that the actions trump took around the 2020 election were not official acts of a president, but were fundamentally acts of a private citizen, and therefore not immune.
It shouldn’t be a hard sell, either, because the president specifically doesn’t have any official duties surrounding the election. This would defeat the entire purpose.
The vice president doesn’t either, as was made clear by that conversation between Pence and Dan Quayle:
Over and over, Pence asked if there was anything he could do.
"‘Mike, you have no flexibility on this. None. Zero. Forget it. Put it away,’ Quayle told him.
"Pence pressed again.
"‘You don’t know the position I’m in,’ he said, according to the authors.
“‘I do know the position you’re in,’ Quayle responded. ‘I also know what the law is. You listen to the parliamentarian. That’s all you do. You have no power.’”
Damn. I hereby pardon Quayle of all crimes against spelling whilst in office.
Exactly. The Supreme Court retroactively elevated the office of presidency to “something more”, with the caveat that at the end of the day, they get to decide what qualifies as crime or not.
I wouldn’t say that the office has become a kingship, but I don’t know what else to call a leader unbound by law.
It’s absolutely horse shit and we have no reason to accept it as a ruling.
I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise.
Jack is right to say so.
The only note I have is I wish he had said Trump resorted to “high crimes, many of which are federal felonies”.
Is this case still being overseen by Eileen Cannon? Because it won’t matter as she stalls and delays until Trump can pardon himself, somehow.
No. She has the Florida case about him retaining classified documents.
This is the federal case about him trying to overturn the election.
There’s also the Georgia case about his conspiracy to overturn Georgia’s election results.
No, Aileen Cannon is presiding over the case about retaining secret documents in Florida (and IIRC, she’s already dismissed it and that decision is being appealed). This “conspired to overthrow the government” case is in Washington DC and is presided over by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is treating it seriously.
