Judge Tanya Chutkan made public portions of a filing by prosecutors setting out their argument for why the case should go forward despite the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity.
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Protesters at the U.S. Capitol after the Save America rally where former President Donald J. Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, in Washington.
In a sprawling legal brief partly unsealed on Wednesday, the special counsel, Jack Smith, laid out his case for why former President Donald J. Trump is not immune from prosecution on federal charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election.
The redacted brief, made public by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington, adds new details to the already extensive public record of how Mr. Trump lost the race but attempted nonetheless to cling to power.
Part of the brief focuses, for example, on a social media post that Mr. Trump sent on the afternoon of the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, telling supporters that Vice President Mike Pence had let them all down. Mr. Smith laid out extensive arguments for why that post on Twitter should be considered an unofficial act of a desperate losing candidate, rather than the official act of a president that would be considered immune from prosecution under a landmark Supreme Court ruling this summer.
After Mr. Trump’s Twitter post focused the enraged mob’s attention on harming Mr. Pence and the Secret Service took the vice president to a secure location, an aide rushed into the dining room off the Oval Office where Mr. Trump was watching television. The aide alerted him to the developing situation, in the hope that Mr. Trump would then take action to ensure Mr. Pence’s safety.
Instead, Mr. Trump looked at the aide and said only, “So what?” according to grand jury testimony newly disclosed in the brief.
Much earlier, the brief says, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers gave him an “honest assessment” that his false claims that the election had been marred by widespread fraud would not hold up in court. But Mr. Trump seemed not to care.
How a Judge Will Weigh Immunity in Trump’s Jan. 6 Case
How does the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling apply to former President Donald J. Trump’s election-interference case? Here’s how Judge Tanya S. Chutkan will decide.
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