Jack Smith’s Filing Against Donald Trump—Everything We Know

Prosecutor Jack Smith is expected to file a huge opening brief on Thursday in his new election fraud case against former President Donald Trump. The filing will be significant and potentially groundbreaking. Here are the key points:
The filing will set out Smith’s election fraud case against Trump. Under federal court rules, prosecutors are normally confined to a 45-page opening brief, but Smith has formally requested 200 pages to fully lay out his case.
Trump was indicted in Washington, D.C., on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. The Republican presidential nominee has pleaded not guilty and has said the case is part of a political witch hunt. The opening brief will set out the evidence that prosecutors have against him.
Smith knows that, under the July 1 U.S. Supreme Court on presidential immunity, Trump had a lot of protection from prosecution. So, by going to 180 pages, Smith wants to fully lay out the case against Trump so that all immunity challenges can be dealt with early in the case. That prevents Trump’s lawyers from raising an objection mid-trial.
The Supreme Court had already outlined in its ruling that the case against Trump should be fully articulated early to allow the federal courts to assess its constitutionality.
They have claimed that Smith should be confined to 45 pages and that granting him 180 pages is special treatment. Joyce Vance, a liberal legal commentator and former U.S. attorney, wrote in her Civil Discourse law blog on Monday that their objection is ridiculous.
“Trump’s lawyers, of course, have opposed the Special Counsel’s motion for more pages,” she wrote. “This is a ridiculous exercise in gamesmanship, given that if Smith sticks to the page limits and omits arguments, they would cry foul or argue that anything he didn’t squeeze into the page limits couldn’t be raised down the road.”
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump’s attorney on Tuesday.
It has granted Trump immunity from core presidential acts and qualified immunity for broader presidential acts. Perhaps most significantly, it forbade prosecutors from using official presidential acts as evidence when prosecuting Trump for private acts.
That has thrown difficulties into the prosecution’s case, which relied heavily on Trump’s White House conversations. Smith was forced to rip up this 45-page indictment and rewrite a new 36-page one that strongly emphasizes Trump’s private acts. He then had to get a grand jury to approve the indictment and introduce it to court.
As it is a new indictment, Trump’s lawyers start all over again in their challenges, which could drag the case on. Trump’s lawyers have already said that they foresee pre-trial arguments continuing into the fall of 2025, if necessary.
Judge Tanya Chutkan received the objections from Trump’s lawyers on Monday afternoon and is likely to rule on Smith’s page length on Tuesday. She will likely rule in Smith’s favor, and he will release his brief on Thursday. Trump’s lawyers will then scrutinize it in depth and launch legal challenges to the higher federal courts, based on Trump’s presidential immunity.
Additionally, they are seeking more disclosure from Smith so they can try to prove that Smith’s indictment violates the Supreme Court ruling. Expect pre-trial arguments to drag on well past Inauguration Day on January 20. If Trump wins the election, the case will not continue while he is in office and would not resume until 2029.