FILE – Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File).
Justice Department prosecutors on Monday said they couldn’t care less about special counsel Jack Smith’s decision to call it quits in the Washington, D.C., criminal case against Donald Trump, telling an accused Jan. 6 rioter who brought it up in a motion recently that the move was an “unprecedented circumstance” and shouldn’t be expected in cases involving private citizens.
“The defendant’s citation to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion to vacate a briefing schedule in the matter of United States v. Trump, is inapposite,” DOJ prosecutors argued in a filing opposing accused Jan. 6 rioter Stephen Baker‘s request to continue his case.
“That motion refers to the ‘unprecedented circumstance’ of a criminal defendant being ‘expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025,”” the filing said. “The need to ‘determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy,’ id., is not similarly implicated in this case, where the defendant is a private citizen.”
Baker has been charged with four misdemeanors, including trespassing and disorderly conduct, for his alleged role in the 2020 attack on the U.S. Capitol. He was scheduled to go on trial this week before his lawyers filed their motion on Sunday to continue his case.
In the motion, Baker’s attorney William Shipley honed in on how Smith made an “unopposed motion” to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to “vacate briefing schedule” in the Trump case after his victory in the 2024 presidential election.
“By that motion, the Department of Justice took the official position that the results of the November 5 election has resulted in an ‘unprecedented circumstance’ that constitutes grounds for pausing an ongoing criminal prosecution of a defendant in connection with the events of January 6, 2021,” the motion argued. “Given the position now taken by the Department of Justice through Special Counsel Jack Smith, directly supervised by Attorney General Merrick Garland, the Department of Justice, in the interests of justice, should adopt the same position in this case … that the unique circumstances created by the outcome of the election justifies pausing all proceedings in this matter, with the parties responding back to the Court with regard to how this case should further proceed — if at all — beginning 70 days from now, January 20, 2025.”
Motions have been hurled left and right at Jan. 6 judges over the past week following Trump’s election win, with defendants from all over the country reportedly pleading their case.
“Ultimately, my jury was the entire American public, and they voted for a mandate to set me free,” wrote one alleged rioter from Kansas, Will Pope, in a motion filed Friday. “If there should be a jury trial in my case, it should happen after emotions have had time to cool.”
The Justice Department wasn’t having it with that excuse, either.
“No continuance is warranted here,” prosecutors said in an opposition filing on Saturday, first reported by the Kansas Reflector. “At this time, the defendant’s expectation of a pardon is mere speculation, and the Court should proceed as it would in any other prosecution.”
Baker, a self-described “citizen journalist” based out of Texas who has written for conservative outlets, is accused of storming into the U.S. Capitol through a broken door before joining up with a mob of people and making his way inside the office of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. He is facing two counts of entering a restricted building and two counts of disorderly conduct and demonstrating in a Capitol building.
In his motion to delay his trial, Baker’s legal team argued that the “unique circumstances” of having a president-elect who has “pledged to reverse the decision-making of the predecessor administration” is what ultimately spurred his request, along with Smith’s pause on Trump’s criminal case.
“To deny this motion, in the face of the Justice Department’s official position, would run contrary to the interests of justice and likely subject the defendant to criminal convictions for no purpose other than expediency,” Baker’s motion said.
“Before the Government makes the claim that the ‘people’ have an interest in the administration of justice as reflected in the Speedy Trial Act, Defendant Baker would point out that the ‘people’ on behalf of whom the Government purports to speak made themselves heard clearly on November 5, and that should mean something to the Department of Justice without regard to what Administration is now in charge,” the motion added.
Ultimately, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper, a Barack Obama appointee, sided with the prosecutors, rejecting Baker’s motion in a minute order posted to the federal docket on Monday.
That order indicated that Baker may not face trial after all.
“It is hereby ORDERED that the parties shall appear for a change-of-plea hearing on November 12, 2024,” the two-sentence order said.
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