An attorney for former President Donald Trump’s Save America PAC ripped into special counsel Jack Smith on Wednesday, accusing him of making similar questionable legal moves that cost him a high-profile conviction several years ago.
In an interview with Newsmax TV’s Eric Bolling, attorney Christina Bobb accused Smith of filing an emergency motion with the U.S. Supreme Court to establish whether Trump can be prosecuted for actions related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot or if he, as president at the time, has immunity from such prosecutions, even as Trump’s team has filed an appeal seeking the same answer with a lower court.
“It’s a playbook that Jack Smith has done before; he’s trying to do the same thing to Donald Trump that he did to Bob McDonnell in Virginia. And this appeal must go as quickly as it possibly can for Jack Smith to keep the timeline, to be able to do exactly what he did with Bob McDonnell,” she told Bolling.
The nation’s highest court has agreed to hear Smith’s motion.
Bobb, meanwhile, was referencing Smith’s previous oversight of the Department of Justice’s public integrity unit, which secured a bribery and extortion conviction against former Virginia Republican Governor Bob McDonnell in a gift case. However, the Supreme Court later overturned the conviction with an 8-0 decision in 2016.
“He rammed through a conviction. It gets overturned eight to zero on appeal. Right. He’s exonerated, but in the meantime, the election took place and interfered with that exactly. That’s what he’s trying to do. Yep,” Bobb told Bolling.
She went on to question the defense team’s lack of information regarding Smith’s appeal.
“What information did they get? Where did they get it? How did they get it? Was there a subpoena involved? Was there a FISA court involved?” she asked, noting further that the defense needed to know the details surrounding Smith’s actions ahead of the trial date, which was scheduled for March 4.
The judge overseeing Trump’s trial, Tanya Chutkan, paused the case while the immunity appeals process played out.
“This is a blatant violation of due process. That’s depriving the president of an opportunity to provide a meaningful defense when they don’t even know what this information is,” Bobb continued.
She then addressed the case being potentially dismissed anyway based on the constitutional principle of presidential immunity for most actions.
“It [Supreme Court] should dismiss the case immediately. Presidential immunity is well established in our case law,” she stated, adding that the court’s failure to do so would have far-ranging negative effects on the presidency.
