Dec. 27 (UPI) — Special Counsel Jack Smith said Wednesday that former President Donald Trump should be barred at trial from making irrelevant claims that blame others for the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
Smith’s filing in the Trump 2020 election conspiracy case said that throughout the litigation “the defendant has sought to blame others for the attack on the Capitol for which he is responsible, including law enforcement, military forces, unidentified secret agents, and foreign influence. The defendant should be precluded from introducing within the courtroom the disinformation he has propagated outside of it.”
The Smith legal filing said among those Trump has signaled an intention to blame for the Jan. 6 mob’s attack on the U.S. Capitol — instigated to block the peaceful transfer of presidential power — are the Capitol Police, National Guard and the district’s mayor.
Smith said Trump’s “baseless political claims” serve only to support a jury-nullification argument and has “no relevance to guilt or innocence and must be excluded.”
“Through public statements, filings, and argument in hearings before the Court, the defense has attempted to inject into this case partisan political attacks and irrelevant and prejudicial issues that have no place in a jury trial,” Smith’s legal filing said. “The Court should not permit the defendant to turn the courtroom into a forum in which he propagates irrelevant disinformation, and should reject his attempt to inject politics into this proceeding.”
Among the Trump arguments Smith asserts should be barred are “unsupported and politicized claims of selective and vindictive prosecution” and arguments that the court proceedings “will interfere with his political activities.”
Smith said Trump should also be prevented from raising “wholly false claims such as the Government’s non-existent “coordination with the Biden Administration.”
The special counsel’s legal filing argues that once Trump’s pending motion to dismiss the case on the basis of selective and vindictive prosecution is resolve, Trump should be barred from using the terms “Injustice Department,” “Biden Indictment” or similar phrases in the presence of the jury.
The legal move by Smith seeks to exclude all Trump arguments that “have no bearing on the defendant’s guilt or innocence, are otherwise irrelevant, or are substantially more prejudicial than probative.”
