‘Alone in American history’: Pr...ny Trump’s bid to dismiss D.C. charges“ Special counsel Jack Smith argued Monday that Donald Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election was far from a case of misplaced “advocacy” or constitutionally protected speech, and he urged the federal judge presiding over Trump’s Washington, D.C., trial to sweep aside Trump’s bid to “sanitize” his conduct.
“The defendant attempts to rewrite the indictment, claiming that it charges him with wholly innocuous, perhaps even admirable conduct — sharing his opinions about election fraud and seeking election integrity,” wrote assistant special counsel James Pearce, “when in fact it clearly describes the defendant’s fraudulent use of knowingly false statements as weapons in furtherance of his criminal plans.”
In a 79-page filing, Smith’s team articulated its clearest case yet for Trump’s prosecution, repeatedly characterizing Trump’s false claims of election fraud as knowing lies aimed at defrauding election officials — from secretaries of state and governors to his own vice president, Mike Pence. Smith also indicated he intends to introduce evidence in Trump’s March trial that Trump stoked the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and then used it to further his effort to derail Congress’ proceedings that day. Prosecutors say they will rely on Trump’s promise to pardon many of the rioters, his description of Jan. 6 as a “beautiful day” and his decision to record a song with some of the violent offenders imprisoned in the Washington, D.C., jail.
The filings were a rebuttal to Trump’s own efforts to dismiss the indictment, which charges him with mounting a sweeping campaign to pressure state and local election officials to throw out Joe Biden’s victory in closely fought swing states. That campaign of “deceit,” they say, continued with Trump’s effort to assemble false slates of presidential electors, which Pearce contended were meant merely to provoke the pretext of a controversy when Congress met to count the votes on Jan. 6.
“[T]he defendant stands alone in American history for his alleged crimes,” Pearce wrote. “No other president has engaged in conspiracy and obstruction to overturn valid election results and illegitimately retain power.”
Trump had argued that his exhortations to state officials were merely “advocacy” based on his fervent belief that the election was stolen from him. Prosecutors said this contention is belied by Trump’s repeated, specific claims of fraud that were repeatedly discredited by his own advisers. And he used those lies, they said, to obstruct the government’s effort to certify the election.
“Knowing lies are neither opinions nor ‘pure advocacy,’ and in any event, the defendant could not use so-called advocacy as a cover for his scheme to obstruct a governmental function through deceit,” Pearce wrote. “Were it otherwise, defendants captured en route to a bank robbery could not be charged with conspiracy because their crime did not succeed.”
Even if Trump could present evidence that he genuinely believed the election was stolen, the prosecutor added, his use of specific, debunked claims of fraud to achieve his goals would still make him guilty of an effort to defraud the government. His similar false statements to convince Pence to single-handedly overturn the election were built around his false claims of a “bona fide dispute about which slate of electors should be counted.”
