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Trump election judge unseals special counsel request for immunity

Trump election judge unseals special counsel request for immunity

A federal judge on Wednesday unsealed a redacted application from special counsel Jack Smith outlining the evidence against former President Donald Trump in his criminal election interference case in Washington, DC

The 165-page document was filed by Smith as part of his argument that Trump can still be prosecuted over his efforts to overturn his 2020 election defeat, despite the Supreme Court ruling in July that he should exercise presumptive presidential immunity for official acts enjoys.

Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the filing less than five weeks before Republican nominee Trump will face Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, in the 2024 presidential election.

If Trump wins the election, he will have the authority to order the Justice Department to drop criminal proceedings against him.

“The defendant claims that he is immune from prosecution for his criminal plan to overturn the 2020 presidential election because, he claims, it involved official conduct. However, that is not the case,” the filing from Smith’s office says.

“Although defendant was the sitting president during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was essentially a private one,” the filing states. “Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate in pursuing multiple criminal means to, through fraud and deception, disrupt the governmental function of collecting and counting votes – a function that the defendant, like…President, had no official role.”

The filing said Chutkan should reject the argument that Trump is immune from all remaining allegations not barred by the Supreme Court ruling.

The filing says that after the November election, as Trump “claimed voter fraud without evidence, his private citizens sought to create chaos rather than provide clarity at polling stations where states continued to record votes.”

The filing states that on November 4, 2020, a Trump campaign staffer and “co-conspirator” attempted to cause confusion in the vote counting at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan, which “looked unfavorable to Trump.”

The employee’s name is redacted in the file, which contains many such redactions of people’s names and other details.

When a colleague of this unidentified campaign staffer told this person that a group of voters appeared to have voted heavily for Joe Biden, the staffer responded, “Find a reason why that’s not the case,” “Give me a chance to.” to file litigation” and “even.” if it is (bs),” the filing says.

“When the colleague suggested during vote counting in Florida in the 2000 election that there would soon be riots reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers riot, the campaign official responded, ‘Make them a riot’ and ‘Make it it!!!’” Motion claims.

The filing also provides numerous examples of how then-Vice President Mike Pence allegedly tried to “gradually and gently” persuade Trump to accept his election defeat.

On Nov. 7, 2020, as major news outlets called the race for Biden, Pence “tried to encourage Trump” by saying, “You have breathed new life into a dying political party,” the filing said.

And at a private lunch on Nov. 12, Pence offered Trump a way to save face while ending his challenges: “Do not concede, but rather acknowledge that the trial is over,” prosecutors wrote.

Four days later, at another private lunch, Pence reportedly tried to urge Trump to accept the election results and run again in 2024.

Trump responded: “I don’t know, 2024 is so far away,” the filing says.

On Dec. 21, Pence allegedly “encouraged” Trump “not to view the election as a ‘loss – just a break,'” the filing said.

Later that day in the Oval Office, Trump asked Pence, “What do you think we should do?”

Pence responded that if all options had been exhausted and “we still haven’t succeeded, (the defendant) should ‘take a bow,'” the filing says.

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