Trump challenges Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment in classified documents case
- The ex-US president’s lawyers tell Judge Aileen Cannon that the case should be thrown out because the prosecutor is too independent
Donald Trump’s lawyer argued on Friday that the criminal case charging the former US president with mishandling classified documents should be thrown out because the prosecutor is too independent – even as Trump complains that his legal woes are directed by Democratic US President Joe Biden.
At a hearing in a federal court in Florida, Trump lawyer Emil Bove pressed US Judge Aileen Cannon to dismiss the case because Special Counsel Jack Smith is not subject to the constraints that other federal prosecutors must face.
“Jack Smith does not have a superior who is operating with sufficient oversight authority over his decisions right now,” Bove said.
That argument has not succeeded in other cases involving special counsels, who have been appointed in Democratic and Republican-led administrations alike to ensure a degree of autonomy in politically sensitive cases.
But Cannon, a Trump appointee, has ruled in favour of the Republican presidential candidate on previous requests and has allowed a flurry of motions by his legal team to slow the case to a crawl. It is unlikely the case will reach a jury before Trump and Biden face voters in the November 5 election.
Trump’s legal challenge is part of a multipronged attack on Smith, whom he has called “deranged” and a “thug” on social media. Smith, a veteran public corruption prosecutor who worked on war crimes cases in The Hague, was named by US Attorney General Merrick Garland in 2022 to lead the investigations into Trump.
