Special counsel Jack Smith outlined the “increasingly desperate” efforts by former President Trump and his allies to try to subvert the 2020 presidential election results in a lengthy motion unsealed by a judge on Wednesday.
Why it matters: Trump and his legal team had opposed the motion, arguing it would interfere with the November election results. The filing unveils new details in connection to the former president’s federal 2020 election case.
- U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the redacted motion on Wednesday.
State of play: Smith in the motion wrote that Trump’s “scheme was a private criminal effort.” He emphasized throughout the document that the former president was acting in his capacity as a candidate, not a president.
- This is an apparent attempt by Smith to respond to the bombshell Supreme Court ruling earlier this year that said that presidents have immunity for “official acts.”
- “At its core, the defendant’s scheme was a private one; he extensively used private actors and his Campaign infrastructure to attempt to overturn the election results and operated in a private capacity as a candidate for office,” Smith wrote.
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