Prosecutors ask judge to limit Trump’s defense
Federal prosecutors asked a judge Wednesday to keep former President Donald Trump and his lawyers from claiming to the jury in his upcoming election interference trial that the case had been brought against him as a partisan attack by the Biden administration.
Prosecutors say their move was designed to keep Trump from making the arguments that he has often made on both the campaign trail and in court papers related to the case.
Ever since Trump was charged this summer with plotting to overturn the 2020 election, he and his lawyers have cast the indictment as a retaliatory strike against him by President Biden. Trump has also placed that assertion at the heart of his presidential campaign, even though the charges were initially returned by a federal grand jury and are being overseen by an independent special counsel, Jack Smith.
Molly Gaston, one of Smith’s senior assistants, asked Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is handling the election case in US District Court in Washington, to keep Trump’s political attacks as far away from the jury as possible.
“The court should not permit the defendant to turn the courtroom into a forum in which he propagates irrelevant disinformation,” Gaston wrote, “and should reject his attempt to inject politics into this proceeding.”
The 20-page motion was filed two weeks after Chutkan effectively froze the case in place as an appeals court considers Trump’s claims that he is immune from prosecution. Last week, the Supreme Court declined to hear the question of the immunity immediately, although the justices are likely to take up the issue after the appeals court completes its highly accelerated review.
In her motion to Chutkan, Gaston acknowledged that the deadlines in the case were currently on hold because of the appeal. But she said that the speBuck cial counsel’s office had nonetheless decided to abide by them “to promote the prompt resumption of the pretrial schedule” after the immunity issue is decided.
It was not the first time that Smith’s team has sought to nudge the case forward during the pause, moves that have prompted outrage from Trump’s lawyers. The former president’s legal team has often worked in the opposite direction, using every lever at its disposal to slow the case down.
Trump’s lawyers are hoping to push the case off until after the 2024 election is decided. If that were to happen and Trump were to win the race, he would have the power to simply order the charges against him to be dropped.