Speaking during an appearance on CNN on Tuesday, August 27, a former high-level official for the Department of Justice said that he thinks there is a “land mine” in special prosecutor Jack Smith’s case against former President Donald Trump that could blow up in the prosecution’s face and quite help the case of the former president.
That former Department of Justice official is Jim Trusty. While serving in that executive branch agency, he was the chief of the DOJ’s arm that focused on combatting organized crime, namely the mob and gangs. He, during his appearance on CNN, focused on the recent Supreme Court of the United States ruling on presidential immunity.
Particularly, he focused on how SCOTUS ruled that there is presidential immunity for “official acts” made as president, and how that ruling specifically refers to how the prosecution introducing evidence that is “immunized” can illegally taint the jury’s perception of a defendant. That is relevant here, as Smith’s team has allegedly introduced evidence in the case against the former president that would be inadmissible under the ruling.
Commenting on that ruling from the highest court in the land to CNN during his interview, particularly in terms of the Trump trial, Mr. 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.”
In other words, the prosecutor has, in introducing inadmissible evidence, disclosed evidence that tainted the jury’s perception of the former president and so made a fair trial impossible. Trusty, commenting on that, said, “That’s a huge landmine.” He continued, “[Smith is] 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.”
He then noted that Smith would have to start all over again if any of his evidence turns out to be protected, saying, “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.”
Watch him here:
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, commenting on Jack Smith’s renewed case against former President Donald Trump, said, “Donald Trump continues to be the most persecuted politician in the history of our country. Today, after getting two of his cases thrown out by the courts, Jack Smith is grasping at straws once again. Just 70 days before the election, Smith has brought yet another bogus indictment. Americans are sick of this corruption and shameless lawfare. They know this is not about justice, but about politics.”
Continuing, he argued that the Biden-Harris Administration’s handling of the matter has been disastrously bad, saying, “Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have set a dangerous, destructive precedent by weaponizing the Department of Justice and using it to prosecute their political opponents. The American people will not let this stand. November 5th cannot arrive soon enough.”
Featured image credit: By United States Department of Justice – This file has been extracted from another file, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=132849708
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