former high-level Justice Department official said on Tuesday that he believes Jack Smith unknowingly inserted a “land mine” into his J6 case against former President Donald Trump that could blow up in his face.
Jim Trusty, the former chief of the DOJ’s arm to combat organized crime and gangs, said the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity for “official acts” specifically refers to how the introduction of “immunized” evidence can play a role in tainting a jury’s perception of a defendant. This is especially important considering arguments by lawyers for Trump that Smith and Washington, D.C. federal Judge Tanya Chutkan have already outlined evidence against the former president that should have been inadmissible. Speaking about the high court, Trusty said, “The opinion says not just that immunized information is not proper before the court at trial, but that it contaminates the grand jury process if you include that information in pursuing an indictment.”
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In other words, the Biden prosecutor has already disclosed evidence against President Trump that will make a fair trial impossible. “That’s a huge landmine,” Trusty continued. “He’s trying to get in front of it before Judge Chutkan has to rule on all of these acts to decide which stuff is fair game or which stuff isn’t. But the problem is, if he guesses wrong in one instance – if he says ‘Oh, the president was consulting Mike Pence, the president of the Senate, not the vice president’ as part of this new indictment – then if he gets it wrong once, he’s got the same problem. He’s gotta go back to the grand jury, re-indict for the third time, based on this ruling from the Supreme Court.”
Pressed by the host about how complicated it now is to charge any current or former president with any action they may have taken as a candidate, Trusty said America’s founding document is rather clear on the matter. “The Constitution seems to suggest… that we don’t want to have our presidents hobbled with constant fear or prosecution by state and federal prosecutors,” he said.
WATCH:
Smith on Tuesday filed a second, revised indictment against President Trump asserting he directed Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the results of the 2020 election. Specific changes included references to Pence as “President of the Senate” rather than vice president, one of the changes that observers believe Smith made in order to escape the umbrella granting presidents broad immunity for official acts. Any conversations between Trump and Pence while in office would almost certainly be considered so.
Even if Smith found greater success with the Obama-appointed judge a second time around, his changes may be for naught: the case had been effectively frozen since December as President Trump’s appeal for immunity snaked its way through federal courts before the Supreme Court’s ruling in June. The chance of a judgment before the November election is all but dead, and if Trump wins he is expected to order the DOJ to fire Smith and terminate the case.
