Special counsel Jack Smith argues that Trump could still be convicted in the Jan. 6 case even if the former president actually believed he won the election, which is a key part of the former president’s expected defense.

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team has filed another blistering indictment in Donald Trump’s January 6 case, accusing him of “fraud, deceit, or unfair means” as he argues that his own belief that he would win the 2020 election won is irrelevant to the allegations that he cheated the election. government.

The indictment, which has Trump headed for a March trial in federal court in Washington, D.C., accuses him of “knowingly making false claims that there was fraud that determined the outcome of the 2020 presidential election” and directing then into a conspiracy to try to reverse the results. for Joe Biden.

This included “dozens” of claims of substantial fraud, dead voters or illegal foreign voters, even as top officials in his own government told him that such large-scale fraud did not exist.

The new filing calls these “lies” and says Trump has repeatedly engaged in “deception” as part of the conspiracy to stay in power.

The 79-page filing also adopts Trump’s lawyers’ argument that he was not deceptive because he sincerely believes “the election was stolen.”

But ‘even if the defendant could provide admissible evidence of his own personal belief that the election was “rigged” or “stolen,” this would not give him the authority to employ fraud and deceit to remedy what he considers a considered wrong. provide no defense to the charges,” Smith’s filing said.

Smith’s team, which includes white-collar crime experts, then makes a business analogy.

“Just as the president of a corporation may be guilty of fraud because he knowingly uses false statements of fact to defraud investors, even if he subjectively believes that his company will ultimately succeed… the defendant may be guilty of the use of deceit to obstruct the government. position that collects, counts and certifies presidential election results, even if he provides evidence that he subjectively believed the election was “rigged,” the filing said.

Special Counsel Jack Smith has again filed a blistering filing arguing against requests from Donald Trump’s lawyers to dismiss the January 6 case

Smith’s dossier accuses Trump of ‘fraud’ and ‘fraud’

That’s a word Trump uses repeatedly to describe the 2020 election as he calls for prosecutions against him in Washington, D.C., and Fulton County, Georgia over his attempt to overturn the results of a “witch hunt” against him.

Smith then linked this to the “fake voters” scheme, in which Trump allies produced “alternative” voters who would say Trump had won contested states.

“From start to finish, false claims of election fraud fueled the fraudulent voters, turning the fraudulent voters into a vehicle for those false claims,” he writes.

“Co-conspirators lied to some fraudulent voters and falsely told them that their votes would only be used if pending litigation changed the results in the defendant’s favor,” the filing said.

Legal experts told it WashingtonPost A judge normally would not dismiss a case based on the fact that the defendant believes the statements prosecutors called deceptive.

The filing came Monday, on a day when Trump was in a Manhattan courthouse and called out another prosecutor, AG Letitia James, for a “political hack” as he fought to save his business empire in a $250 million civil fraud lawsuit.

The D.C. government’s case will argue that Trump made false statements to then-Vice President Mike Pence, and that even if Trump made “misrepresentations of law” about Pence’s powers, they were “based on specific factual lies’. That comes amid vague legislative language about the vice president’s ceremonial role.

“The allegations of fraud, deceit or unfair means in the indictment are numerous and clear,” the filing said. It calls the original 45-page indictment “more than sufficient” to charge him with trying to undermine a government function — the counting of electoral votes — by “dishonest means.”

And it dismisses his lawyers’ claim that he has in fact already been tried through impeachment as “frivolous,” and has attacked the claim that Trump’s claims of fraud were protected by the First Amendment.

It comes after Trump’s own team filed a series of motions asking Judge Tanya Chutkan to dismiss the case.