This is absurd, unconstitutional, and Putinesque. Jack Smith should be immediately removed for even proposing this.
In a move worthy of any aspiring tyrant, Special Counsel Jack Smith is asking the court to prevent Donald Trump from making arguments that he believes are relevant to his defense.
Smith, as the prosecutor, may disagree with Trump’s arguments, but last I checked, in our justice system, it is up to a jury to determine the facts of a case.
Special counsel Jack Smith files a motion in former President Trump’s federal election interference case, seeking to block him from making political arguments and referring to conspiracy theories during the trial.
— NBC News (@NBCNews) December 27, 2023
Smith’s sweeping motion would essentially silence Trump–preventing him from criticizing the Special Counsel, law enforcement, the electoral process, or just about anything else.
I am pretty sure that if Smith gets his way, the only words Trump or his lawyers could utter would be “Guilty, Your Honor.”
Special counsel Jack Smith filed a motion Wednesday in Donald Trump’s federal election interference case seeking to block him from making political arguments and referring to conspiracy theories during the trial.
“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,” the filing reads.
Smith asked the court to prohibit Trump from advancing “a theory of selective or vindictive prosecution or to otherwise improperly inject politics into the trial.”
Smith pointed to Trump’s arguments that he is only being prosecuted for political reasons.
“In addition to being wrong, these allegations are irrelevant to the jury’s determination of the defendant’s guilt or innocence, would be prejudicial if presented to the jury, and must be excluded,” the special counsel wrote.
Additionally, Smith seeks to have the court prohibit Trump from telling the jury arguments he’s made publicly that others are to blame for the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, “including law enforcement, military forces, unidentified secret agents, and foreign influence.”
You can accept or not Trump’s arguments, but not allowing him to make his case in court would be yet another egregious attack on the Constitution.
Read Related Also: That Time the FBI Dropped Four Investigations Into Those Filthy Clintons Before the 2016 Election
Smith wants to prevent jury from learning about presence of undercover agents: pic.twitter.com/Z4fCQN4o9P
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) December 27, 2023
You can defend yourself, but only if you stipulate everything the prosecution alleges.
Some justice.
Smith also asked the court to prohibit Trump from arguing to the jury that the reason for the Jan. 6 attack was ill-prepared law enforcement.
“The defendant cannot argue that law enforcement should have prevented the violence he caused and obstruction he intended,” Smith wrote.
Trump has repeatedly argued in public that the case against him is purely political and that Smith is only prosecuting him because he is running for a second term. Trump has sought to depict the prosecution as an arm of President Joe Biden’s political operation.
It is as if the whole point of Smith’s prosecution is to prove that the Deep State exists and will do just about anything to harm Donald Trump and his supporters. Gagging any defendant in a manner to prevent his making a defense is indefensible; gagging a presidential candidate in the middle of an election season is, as I said, Putinesque.
Jack Smith does not want Trump to point out to the jury that a political and selective prosecution is political and selective pic.twitter.com/oVHCtYiMMg
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) December 27, 2023
Next, Smith will ask that Trump be held in Siberia, or perhaps at the Supermax Prison in Colorado.
I am only half-joking.
Note how Smith refers to “disinformation” as if he is the arbiter of truth. It really is Kafkaesque.
