Trump team files emergency motion to block another Jack Smith report

President-elect Donald Trump’s legal team filed an emergency motion in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida on Monday, seeking to block former special counsel Jack Smith from releasing a “report” on the matter.

Trump-appointed Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed Smith’s lawsuit against Trump in the so-called “documents” case, which was already riddled with procedural problems, last July. She accepted the defense’s argument that Smith’s nomination was unconstitutional, since he had never been confirmed by the U.S. Senate and was not a U.S. Attorney.

Trump’s legal team argued that Smith therefore had no authority to release a report and that doing so would not only harm Trump but also harm the other two defendants in the case, Walt Nauta and Carlos de Oliveira.

In the file, they wrote (emphasis in original):

Despite this Court’s finding that Smith was unconstitutionally appointed and funded, and despite ongoing proceedings against Defendants Waltine Nauta and Carlos De Olivera, Special Counsel Smith, in defiance of the rulings of this Court, is determined to have the final word by pursuing the publication and transmission of a final report pursuant to 28 CFR § 608(c) (the “Final Report”) which Attorney General Garland agrees to immediately make public. These defendants will suffer irreparable harm as civilian victims of the government’s impermissible and contumacious use of political law to include the release of the unauthorized report. The final report relies on documents that Smith, as a disqualified special counsel, no longer has the right to access – making his attempt to share these documents with the public highly inappropriate.

…

The final report promises to be a one-sided and biased report, relying almost exclusively on evidence presented to a grand jury and subject to all required protections – and of which Smith only became aware following his unconstitutional appointment – in order to serve a single purpose: to convince the public that everyone accused by Smith is guilty of the crimes charged. But the criminal cases of Nauta and De Oliveira are not over; appeal from this Court’s order of dismissal by Smith is still pending. Notably, the government continued to inform the appeal even after the appeal regarding President Trump was rejected. The threat of future criminal proceedings against Nauta and De Oliveira remains, and these proceedings will be irreversibly and irreparably compromised by the release of the final report. As the Government knows, maintaining the protection order in this case will make the final one-sided and unacceptable report even more unfairly prejudicial; The accused are strictly prohibited from refuting the report. The final report is intended to serve as the government’s verdict against the defendants, contrary to all criminal justice norms and constitutional principles.

It is important to note that the Government has never sought a stay of this Court’s rulings as to the wrongfulness of the Special Prosecutor’s appointment and his actions in these prosecutions. The government never asked the Fed for clarification. A. Crim. P. 6(e)(2)(B) prohibits disclosure of grand jury materials by persons not authorized to act as government advisor in the case, with limited exceptions that clearly do not apply not to government lawyers deemed lacking authority to act in the case. Given the invalidity of his purported status under the Appointment and Dispatch Clauses, the invalidated Special Counsel does not have the authority to write a grand jury report, file a report, share information about the report or publish a report.

In October, just a month before the election, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who presided over the so-called “January 6” case against Trump in Washington, allowed Smith to file, and then release, a massive 165-page file. motion full of allegations against Trump.

The move was widely seen as an effort to avoid delays in the trial and to influence the election, because Trump did not have the opportunity in court to refute Smith’s claims, nor could Smith’s evidence. be cross-examined.

Joel B. Pollak is a senior editor at Breitbart News and host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump should do in his first 100 daysavailable for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidencynow available on Audible. He is the recipient of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.