Special counsel Jack Smith is expected to submit an “oversized” brief in former President Donald Trump’s election interference case in Washington D.C. by Thursday. The briefing is, in the view of the judge overseeing the case, needed to respond to the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling.
Smith requested permission to exceed the normal length limits for briefs, seeking to file up to 200 pages of argumentation in the case, which immediately drew comparisons to past special counsel reports, like those from special counsels Robert Mueller or Robert Hur. This comes as a response to the Supreme Court’s ruling earlier this year, which found the president enjoys broad legal immunity for official “core constitutional acts.”
The Supreme Court ruling threw the prosecution of Trump for his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election into chaos and the new filing is an opportunity for Smith to make the case that Trump’s efforts do not qualify as official acts.
Attorney Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House lawyer, told Salon that the filing from Smith was appropriate and necessary in light of the recent Supreme Court ruling but he said that the filing likely won’t be like special counsel reports.
“The Mueller report [was] 400 pages of we ‘didn’t find anything,’ this will be 180 pages of evidence and the evidence will be powerful, undeniable and persuasive,” Cobb said. “The issue for the judge to decide is whether it infringes on official acts........