Former President Donald Trump (AP Photo: Seth Wenig), special counsel Jack Smith (AP Photo: J. Scott Applewhite.)
Defense attorneys for former President Donald Trump on Thursday asked his Jan. 6 trial judge to order special counsel Jack Smith and two prosecutors on his team to explain why the shouldn’t be held in contempt for violating a “clear, straightforward, and unambiguous” halt of the proceedings pending Trump’s immunity appeal.
Attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro told U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that the special counsel and attorneys Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom should be punished for filing “an expansive motion in limine” (MIL) — that “teems with partisan rhetoric” — “less than 10 days” after the judge’s stay order in the case.
Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee, on Dec. 13 issued on order that said “the court agrees with both parties that Defendant’s appeal automatically stays any further proceedings that would move this case towards trial or impose additional burdens of litigation on Defendant.”
Immediately after slamming “partisan rhetoric,” Trump attorneys took aim at the Biden administration:
Moreover, the MIL mirrors the Biden Administration’s dishonest talking points, asserting, again falsely, that President Trump was responsible for the events of January 6, 2021, when in truth he called for peaceful and patriotic assembly and protest. In this manner, the prosecutors seek to weaponize the Stay to spread political propaganda, knowing that President Trump would not fully respond because the Court relieved him of the burdens of litigation during the Stay. Worse, the prosecutors have announced their intention to continue this partisan-driven misconduct indefinitely, effectively converting this Court’s docket into an arm of the Biden Campaign.
Calling the conduct of the Special Counsel’s Office “outrageous,” the defense said the motion in limine at issue should be withdrawn and that “severe” sanctions should be ordered up:
To remedy this outrageous conduct, the Court should issue an order to show cause why the prosecutors should not be: (1) held in contempt; (2) required to immediately withdraw their MIL and improper productions; (3) forbidden from submitting any further filing or production absent the Court’s express permission while the Stay Order is in effect; and (4) assessed monetary sanctions in the amount of President Trump’s reasonable attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in responding to the prosecutors’ improper productions and filings, including in litigating this Motion (collectively, the “Requested Sanctions”).
The defense took shots at Jack Smith’s failed “desperate ploy for early review” of Trump’s immunity claims at the U.S. Supreme Court and suggested that prosecutors’ alleged violations of Chutkan’s order was related.
“Unpersuaded, the Supreme Court denied the prosecutors’ desperate ploy for early review. Having failed above, the prosecutors resumed their strategy of violating the Stay Order, filing the MIL on December 27, 2023,” the filing said. “Aware that their submission was improper, the prosecutors tellingly did not confer with President Trump before filing, as required.”
“Moreover, and unsurprisingly,” the defense continued, “the prosecutors suddenly forgot their histrionics regarding the all-encompassing scope of the Stay Order. Instead, the prosecutors returned to their twisted view that the Stay Order is merely a suggestion meaning less than the paper it is written on.”
The Trump team, again claiming Smith’s “repeated and willful violations” were part of “prosecutors’ desperate effort to harass President Trump and prevent his likely victory in the 2024 Presidential Election,” said Chutkan “should require the prosecutors to ‘compensate [President Trump] for damages sustained as a result from noncompliance”” — specifically to “reimburse President Trump for all reasonable attorneys’ fees and other expenses that he has incurred responding to the prosecutor’s improper productions and filings.”
Read the filing here.
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