OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
CNN’s senior legal analyst explained over the weekend why he believes special counsel Jack Smith is rushing to get former President Donald Trump to trial before next year’s election.
“I think any fair-minded observer has to agree” that Smith wants to convict the former president beforehand, Elie Honig said when he was asked whether Smith and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan were attempting to expedite Trump’s so-called ‘election interference’ case.
“Just look at Jack Smith’s conduct in this case. The motivating principle behind every procedural request he’s made has been speed has been getting this trial in before the election,” Honig went on to say before giving some examples.
“The average federal conspiracy and fraud trial takes about a year and a half to two years between indictment and trial. In this case, we have dozens, hundreds of January 6th rioters caught on video, straightforward cases,” he continued. “They, too, were given about a year and a half to two years between indictment and trial. Jack Smith originally requested a trial date for Donald Trump, a far more complex case, five months out.”
“He wanted a January trial. It was set for two months later. So Donald Trump is being given far less time to prepare than other defendants. And the actions this week, Jack Smith won an argument on immunity in the district court and then went right to the Supreme Court,” Honig added.
Chutkan initially set Trump’s trial date for March, but last week she put the case on hold while Smith and Trump’s attorneys battle in various courts over whether the defendant was covered by presidential immunity during the Jan. 6, 2021, events at the U.S. Capitol Building.
Federal prosecutors have been utilizing an obscure statute, which emerged in the wake of the Enron corruption scandal, to charge January 6 defendants with felony “obstruction of an official proceeding.” The charge has led to lengthy prison terms for hundreds of January 6 defendants, in contrast to the typically less severe charges of disorderly conduct or parading arrests.
The nation’s highest court has agreed to hear cases from two Jan. 6 defendants, ostensibly to decide whether or not the use of the obscure provision is proper. If they rule in favor of the Jan. 6 defendants, that will upend the government’s cases against virtually all other Jan. 6 defendants, and it could ruin Smith’s case against Trump.
Last week, Trump ripped into Smith after he went around the normal appeals process and asked the Supreme Court to decide whether the ex-president can invoke immunity in the 2020 election case.
Trump accused Smith of “election interference” in a Truth Social post following the special counsel’s decision to bypass the federal appeals court and go straight to the nation’s highest court to determine whether the former president can assert his complete immunity from federal prosecution for alleged criminal attempts to overturn the results of the last election, given that these actions occurred while he was in office.
“So Deranged Jack Smith, the Biden appointed ‘nut job’ prosecutor with a big record of loses because he goes too far, wants to RUSH, RUSH, RUSH to the Supreme Court on the important matter of Presidential Immunity, something which is so basic to America that it should be automatic,” Trump wrote on Wednesday.
In his court filings, Smith emphasized the “imperative public importance” of a swift ruling by the Supreme Court on the immunity defense. Another important factor for the ex-president is the scheduling of the federal election trial, in which Trump has entered not-guilty pleas to four counts.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the federal case and has long claimed that all criminal investigations against him are “witch hunts” with a political agenda to derail his chances of winning the next election.
“[Smith] doesn’t want to go to our Highest Court with a loss, or negative opinion, but what he does want to do is INTERFERE WITH THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OF 2024, hoping to damage Biden’s POLITICAL OPPONENT. In other words he want to CHEAT, because if they really wanted SPEED, they would have brought this ridiculous lawsuit 3 years ago, and it would be long ago over,” added the former president in his post.
