The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed to hear arguments over former President Donald Trump’s immunity claims in special counsel Jack Smith’s D.C. election case.
Read MoreSupreme Court to Hear Arguments on Trump Criminal Immunity Claims
Tag: Jack Smith
Commentary: Blue Laws for Red Citizens
One state prosecutor and one civilian plaintiff have already won huge fines and damages from Donald Trump that may, with legal costs, exceed $500 million.
Trump awaits further civil and criminal liability in three other federal, state, and local indictments.
Read MoreJack Smith Makes Another Push to Keep Documents Under Seal
Special Counsel Jack Smith asked Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday to reconsider her decision to unseal certain documents prosecutors wanted to keep from the public docket.
Read MoreTrump Does Not Have Presidential Immunity in 2020 Election Case, Appeals Court Rules
Former President Donald Trump can be prosecuted on alleged crimes related to the 2020 election, a federal appeals court said Tuesday in a major blow to the former president’s defense against charges brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith.
Read MoreCommentary: Was It Legal to Appoint Jack Smith in the First Place?
Was Special Counsel Jack Smith illegally appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland and is his prosecution of former Pres. Donald Trump unlawful? That is the intriguing issue raised in an amicus brief filed in the Supreme Court by Schaerr Jaffe, LLP, on behalf of former Attorney General Ed Meese and two law professors, Steven Calabresi and Gary Lawson, in the case of U.S. v. Trump.
We won’t get an immediate answer to this question because on the Friday before Christmas, the Supreme Court issued a one-line order refusing to take up Smith’s request that the court review Trump’s claim of presidential immunity, which was denied by the trial court, in the federal prosecution being pursued by Smith in the District of Columbia. The special counsel had petitioned the court to take the case on an expedited basis, urging the justices to bypass review by the Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
Read MoreJudge Officially Postpones Trump’s March 4 D.C. Election Interference Trial
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday officially suspended former President Donald Trump’s March 4 trial in special counsel Jack Smith’s election case, The Hill reported.
Read MoreCommentary: DC Appellate Judges Use ‘Unprecedented Approach’ to Get Trump’s Twitter Files
In January 2023, two months after his appointment as special counsel, Jack Smith applied for a search warrant to obtain all of the data associated with Donald Trump’s long-dormant Twitter account. Smith sought not just public posts but direct messages, drafted and deleted posts, and the identity of any individual with access to the account. Smith also asked for “all users [Trump’s account] has followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked, and all users who have followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked” Trump’s account.
The application was stunning in scope with no justification as to why the government needed such a limitless trove of information—particularly one that clearly ran afoul of Trump’s right to assert executive privilege. So, Smith neatly settled that matter by additionally asking for a nondisclosure order that prevented Twitter from notifying Trump about the search warrant for 180 days.
Read MoreDOJ Attorney Playing Key Role in Jack Smith’s Prosecution of Trump Worked on Case That Put Pro-Life Activist in Jail
One of the prosecutors helping special counsel Jack Smith prosecute former President Donald Trump for alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election also worked on a high-profile case against a pro-life activist.
Molly Gaston, a prosecutor who spent years in the District of Columbia U.S. Attorney’s Office and is now playing a key role on Smith’s team, worked on the early stages of the prosecution of pro-life activist Lauren Handy. Handy had been in jail since August when she, along with four co-defendants, were found guilty of violating the Freedom of Access To Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act for blocking access to a Washington, D.C., abortion clinic in 2020.
Read MoreCommentary: The Hackery of Judge Florence Pan
If a court proceeding held in the nation’s capital on Tuesday is an indication of how 2024 will go—things will be a lot worse than even the biggest skeptic predicted.
A three-judge panel of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia—Biden appointees Florence Pan and Michelle Childs and George H. W. Bush appointee Karen Henderson—heard oral arguments for Donald Trump’s appeal of a lower court decision that concluded presidents are not immune from criminal prosecution for their conduct in office. The appeal originated out of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s four-count indictment against the former president related to the events of January 6.
Read MoreProsecutor on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s Team Shut Down FBI Investigation into the Clinton Foundation in 2016
A top prosecutor on Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team recommended that the FBI shut down an investigation into the Clinton Foundation in 2016, despite ample evidence of suspicious activity related to hundreds of thousands of dollars in foreign transactions, Fox News reported.
In his May 2023 report on the FBI’s Crossfire Hurricane investigation, Special Counsel John Durham identified Ray Hulser, the former chief of the Department of Justice’s Public Integrity Section (PIN), as the official who “declined prosecution” of the Clinton Foundation. Hulser now serves on Smith’s team currently prosecuting former President Donald Trump for alleged crimes related to January 6.
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