While the Supreme Court considers Donald Trump’s immunity claim in the federal election interference case, the former president is also claiming protection from prosecution in the classified documents case. In a scathing response, special counsel Jack Smith just called out the latter bid as a “frivolous” one that Trump “offered for one transparent purpose — to delay the trial.”
What makes the Florida immunity claim even more outlandish is that Trump is charged there with conduct that allegedly happened after he left office, as opposed to the election interference case that stems from things he allegedly did when he was actually president. Smith points out in his Thursday filing that the Florida indictment “does not charge Trump for any acts that he undertook as President, let alone an official presidential act.” Rather, the special counsel explains that the Florida indictment alleges
that even though Trump lost the authority to possess documents containing national defense information after his term as President ended, he nonetheless willfully retained such documents after his Presidency, including by conspiring with others to conceal his ongoing, unlawful possession from his own attorneys, federal investigators, and the grand jury.
Mindful that another pretrial immunity appeal could further delay the Florida case as it has the Washington case, Smith urged U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to “deny the dismissal motion and certify Trump’s immunity claim as frivolous so that he cannot use this meritless argument — disconnected from the actual charges — as the basis for an interlocutory appeal aimed at delaying trial.”
So the latest immunity issue, such as it is, puts another possible delay tool in Cannon’s hands at a crucial juncture for all of Trump’s criminal cases. We’ll see how the Trump appointee wields it. Subscribe to the Deadline: Legal Newsletter for weekly updates on the top legal stories, including news from the Supreme Court, the Donald Trump cases and more.
Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro," a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined MS NOW, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
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