
Donald Trump and Barack Obama on on January 20, 2017 (Photo by Saul Loeb – Pool/Getty Images)
Lawyers for Donald Trump were abundantly clear on Wednesday in a filing at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that they view special counsel Jack Smith as a “Grinch” who is trying to ruin their Christmases by trying to expedite review of the former president’s “immunity” arguments in his Jan. 6 criminal case.
The opposition filed by the Trump team comes two days after the special counsel filed a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment in the U.S. Supreme Court and, at the same time, filed a “motion to expedite proceedings in the D.C. Circuit” in the event that SCOTUS did not ultimately decide to grant the petition.
In the SCOTUS petition, Smith said that he wants the Trump immunity claims to be “resolved as expeditiously as possible” so that the Jan. 6 trial date currently set for March 4 doesn’t have to be pushed back. Trump lawyers countered by accusing the special counsel of having the lone “goal” of “unlawfully attempt[ing] to try, convict, and sentence President Trump before an election in which he is likely to defeat President Biden.”