(DailyWire) Former President Donald Trump accused special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday of violating a court order pausing the proceedings in the case against the former president in which he is accused of unlawfully plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump’s re-election campaign said Trump wants to hold Smith in contempt of court.
Lawyers for Trump pointed to a stay of the proceedings granted by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee, after they appealed her rejection of their request to dismiss the case. Although the appeal, which hinges on presidential immunity and double jeopardy claims, was taken up by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, Smith’s team went along making submissions anyway, Trump’s attorneys noted.
Prosecutors violated last month’s stay “almost immediately” by serving thousands of pages of discovery and a “purported” draft exhibit list, the 15-page filing said. Despite a “warning” from Trump that he would seek relief if their “malicious conduct” continued, prosecutors then filed a motion filled with “partisan rhetoric, including false claims,” the filing added.
“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,” Trump’s legal team wrote. “Worse, the prosecutors have announced their intention to continue this partisan-driven misconduct indefinitely, effectively converting this Court’s docket into an arm of [President Joe Biden’s re-election] Campaign.”
Trump’s lawyers asked the federal court in Washington, D.C., to order prosecutors to “show cause” for why they should not be held in contempt, be required to withdraw their filings, be forbidden from making future productions without express permission from the court, and assessed monetary sanctions for attorneys’ fees and expenses incurred in the response.
