U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has signed off on Special Counsel Jack Smith‘s request to file an oversized opening brief regarding immunity issues as the federal election subversion case against Former President Donald Trump presses forward.
Smith’s office alerted the court over the weekend that it was seeking to file a nearly 200-page brief regarding how the Supreme Court‘s ruling regarding presidential immunity impacts the charges against Trump, who is facing four felony counts related to his alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
Trump’s defense team argued in a motion on Monday that the “fundamentally unfair” request from Smith should be shot down by Chutkan, in part because the brief’s page count is over four times what opening briefs are usually confined to before the District of Columbia court system.
But Chuktan wrote in her order a day later that the court would grant Smith’s request “to file an oversized brief” and shot down the defense’s arguments about the legality of the briefing.
“Allowing a brief from the Government is not ‘contrary to law procedure, and custom,’ as Defendant claims…it is simply how litigation works,” read the order in part.
Special counsel Jack Smith (left) in Washington, D.C., on August 1, 2023, and former President Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 8, 2022. A federal judge has granted Smith’s request to file an oversized brief opening brief in Trump’s election fraud case. (Photo by SAUL LOEBEVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/AFP via Getty Images)
This is a developing story that will be updated as information becomes available.
