Jack Smith has been scheming for nearly two years to put Donald Trump in jail.
But he’s suffered one legal setback after another.
And Jack Smith waived the white flag of surrender in this big fight with Donald Trump.
Jack Smith pairs down his indictment against Donald Trump
Special Counsel Jack Smith is down to his last chance against former President Donald Trump.
District Court Judge Aileen Cannon threw out his Mar-a-Lago classified documents after she ruled that he was illegally appointed.
Smith’s January 6 is his last gambit to put Trump on trial before the election, but it’s on life support after the Supreme Court’s Presidential Immunity ruling protecting official acts by a President from criminal prosecution.
He reacted to that by filing a superseding indictment in the January 6 case.
CNN legal analyst Elie Honig said that Smith “cut back” his indictment because of the Presidential immunity ruling.
He explained that some of the evidence used in Smith’s initial indictment would be considered “official acts” of the President.
“Now, if you’re wondering why would Jack Smith pair back, cut back his own case, the answer is because of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling which came down in July,” Honig said. “In that ruling, it said that many of the things that Donald Trump did while he was in office, including specifically his interactions with DOJ, his public communications, likely his interactions with the [former] Vice President [Mike Pence], those things are likely going to be immune and therefore out of this case.”
Jack Smith forced to switch tactics after Supreme Court ruling
Smith had to issue a new indictment because of the legal realities he was facing after the Supreme Court’s Presidential immunity ruling.
Honig called it a “tactical decision” by Smith to not fight to keep some of the evidence in the original indictment that is likely covered by Presidential immunity.
The Supreme Court’s ruling left it up to lower courts to determine what is considered an official act by a President.
“I think this is a tactical retreat of sorts,” Honig continued. “I think Jack Smith has made the decision, given the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling, ‘I don’t want to spend the time and the resources to fight for inclusion of those other parts of the case. So what Jack Smith has done is retreat to the safest ground to the part that the Supreme Court actually said is probably okay, is probably not immune. They said it’s very likely not the job of the President to interact with and pressure state and local officials.”
Smith is going after Trump for allegedly trying to pressure state and local officials about the 2020 Election and creating an alternate set of electors.
Honig predicted that Trump’s legal team would fight the superseding indictment by claiming that the former President was still protected by Presidential immunity.
That leaves a lengthy battle to be fought before this case could ever go to trial.
Honig said there was a “0% chance” that Smith could start a trial before Election Day in November.
Jack Smith’s mission to put Donald Trump on trial during the election looks like it’s going to come up short.
