Donald Trump is to blame for the timing of Jack Smith’s bombshell filing, which aims to show that the former president should be prosecuted for allegedly interfering in the 2020 election, according to his niece Mary Trump.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Wednesday unsealed 165 pages of evidence filed against Trump in his election fraud case. The Republican presidential nominee has denied the allegations.
The filing, which was publicized after a request by Special Counsel Jack Smith, alleges that Trump called then Vice President Mike Pence on the morning of January 6, 2021, asking not to certify the election of President Joe Biden later that day, and that a Detroit campaign staffer texted a Trump operative to incite a riot among his supporters outside the counting center, among other things.
Following the publication of the filing, Trump claimed that “Deranged Jack Smith” and the “DOJ [Department of Justice],” had timed the release following the vice presidential debate, in which many considered running mate JD Vance to have come out top.
Alex Brandon/AP
“The DOJ pushed out this latest ‘hit job’ today because JD Vance humiliated Tim Walz last night in the Debate. The DOJ has become nothing more than an extension of Joe’s, and now Kamala’s, Campaign,” he wrote in a post on Truth Social.
In another post the same day, Trump named Smith among those who had “weaponized” the Department of Justice.
“Deranged Jack Smith, the hand picked Prosecutor of the Harris-Biden DOJ, and Washington, D.C. based Radical Left Democrats, are HELL BENT on continuing to Weaponize the Justice Department in an attempt to cling to power,” Trump said.
Elsewhere he wrote: “This is a case of Election interference by Jack Smith. Old information that should not have been released prior to the Election. There was no reason to release it. Gregg Jarrett, FoxNews.”
However, in a blog post, Trump’s estranged niece Mary Trump wrote that he in fact was the one to blame for the timing of the release, owing to his repeated attempts to delay the case against him.
“The salient point here is that Donald, as well as other Republican operatives, are accusing Jack Smith and Judge Chutkan of election interference because the filing was released only 35 days out from the election,” she wrote.
“So, if Donald wants to blame somebody for the fact that Smith’s filing was made public so close to the election, he just needs to look in the mirror.”
Newsweek has contacted the Trump campaign for comment via email.
Trump’s election interference trial was originally scheduled to begin in April. However, the former president’s legal team have made several attempts to get the case dismissed, delaying a start date for the trial and making it unlikely he will be tried before the November election.
Former federal prosecutor, now partner at Jones Walker law firm, David Weinstein, told Newsweek this week that the timing of Smith’s filing was purely coincidental. He said that docket entries from September 5 showed Chutkan had ordered the government to file its briefing by September 26. The clerk of the court was directed to publicly file that briefing on September 27.
“Yet again, he [Trump] is not correct,” Weinstein said.
“Jack Smith had nothing to do about when the pleading was made public. The release of the pleading was not timed to the VP debate and election. It was purely coincidental.
“As can see from the docket, the judge set these dates back at the beginning of September.”
Meanwhile, Temple University Charles Klein professor of law and government Craig Green told Newsweek that the schedule for filing the government’s brief was set weeks ago by Chutkan, and each party would have had the opportunity to make objections.
“The choice to unseal the document yesterday [October 2]—a document originally filed on September 26—was made by Judge Chutkan,” Green said.
“Here again, if Mr. Trump’s lawyers feared political fallout, they could have objected, even more so if they suspected political motives.
“Judge Chutkan’s decision to unseal, and the timing of the decision to unseal, were hers alone—nothing to do with Jack Smith—and she made that choice with every opportunity for Mr. Trump’s lawyers to object and be heard if anything seemed potentially improper, unseemly, or political,” he said. “This is the opposite of a ‘hit job.'”
“Jack Smith has been pushing to get this case tried for two years. It is Trump who has sought delay after delay, and he has succeeded in preventing the trial in going forward before the election. Now he is complaining that the litigation is still ongoing,” former federal prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg said.
“That is his doing, not Jack Smith’s.”
Trump is accused of conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights in connection with an alleged pressure campaign on state officials to reverse the 2020 election results.
He has denied all charges against him and repeatedly said he is the victim of a political witch hunt. He has also accused Smith of attempting to interfere in the 2024 presidential election by prosecuting him.
Late last month, Smith filed an updated indictment of Trump, retooling the case to comply with the Supreme Court‘s ruling that former presidents have some immunity from criminal prosecution for “official” actions.
The new indictment removes all accusations leveled against Trump regarding attempts to pressure the Department of Justice to falsely declare that President Joe Biden‘s 2020 election win was the result of massive fraud, after the Supreme Court ruled that was official conduct.
A list of unnamed coconspirators has been trimmed, and the phrase “private attorney” now describes the unindicted lawyers who allegedly helped Trump pressure officials to overturn results.
It also removes all references to Trump as the 45th president of the United States and instead refers to him as a “candidate for president.”
