A lawyer for former President Donald Trump is calling out special counsel Jack Smith's sudden urgency for "a speedy trial" before the 2024 presidential election, saying it is unconstitutional and another example of the weaponization of President Joe Biden's Justice Department for election purposes.
"He had 3 1/2 years; why don't we make it equal?" Trump attorney John Lauro told NBC's "Today" on Wednesday morning after Smith indicted Trump on four federal counts, three for conspiracy and one for deprivation of rights stemming from the challenge of the 2020 presidential election.
"The bottom line is that they have 60 federal agents working on this, 60 lawyers, all kinds of government personnel, and we get this indictment and they want to go to trial in 90 days. Does that sound like justice to you?"
While Smith, leading the Biden DOJ prosecution, said "my office will seek a speedy trial so that our evidence can be tested in court and judged by a jury of citizens," Lauro condemned the misinterpretation of the Sixth Amendment constitutional right to a "speedy trial."
It is a constitutional right provided to the accused, not the federal government's Justice Department, a fact apparently lost on Smith, Lauro noted when hearing his statement.
"We're entitled to understand what the charges are," Lauro told NBC News. "We're entitled to do our own investigation.
"To take President Trump to trial in 90 days, of course, is absurd.
"The question is, why do they want to do that? If you want to seek justice, then you need to offer President Trump an opportunity to get a hold of all the evidence and understand what the facts are."
Ultimately, Biden's DOJ is using investigations, indictments, and prosecutions of Trump to deflect, according to Lauro.
"The election's going on," he said. "Right now they want to go to trial so that instead of debating the issues against Joe Biden, that President Trump is sitting in a courtroom — how is that justice?
"The American people want to talk about the issues. What they don't want to do is relitigate the 2020 election."
That is precisely what Smith's 4-count, 45-page indictment Tuesday did, Lauro continued.
"This is the first time that the First Amendment has been criminalized," he said. "It's the first time that a sitting president is attacking a political opponent on First Amendment grounds and basically making it criminal to state your position and to engage in political activity."
As far as the Smith legal argument the alternate electors are a conspiracy for a crime, legal precedent — constitutional law expert Alan Dershowitz told Newsmax — that was "completely lawful" and taken on advice of legal counsel, Lauro told NBC.
"You're entitled to believe and trust advice of counsel," Lauro said. "You have one of the leading constitutional scholars in the United States, John Eastman, say to President Trump, 'This is a protocol that you can follow. It's legal.' That eliminates criminal intent."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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