Another day, another leak.
Special Counsel Jack Smith has uncovered new details about Trump’s so-called ‘inaction’ to stop the protestors on January 6 in a leak to ABC News ahead of Trump’s pitch to the appeals court on immunity claims.
President Trump told supporters on January 6 to “peacefully and patriotically” protest.
The new hit piece targets Trump’s senior advisor Dan Scavino.
“Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has uncovered previously undisclosed details about former President Donald Trump’s refusal to help stop the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol three years ago as he sat watching TV inside the White House, according to sources familiar with what Smith’s team has learned during its Jan. 6 probe.” ABC News reported.
Excerpt from ABC News:
Many of the exclusive details come from the questioning of Trump’s former deputy chief of staff, Dan Scavino, who first started working for Trump as a teenager three decades ago and is now a paid senior adviser to Trump’s reelection campaign. Scavino wouldn’t speak with the House select committee that conducted its own probe related to Jan. 6, but — after a judge overruled claims of executive privilege last year — he did speak with Smith’s team, and key portions of what he said were described to ABC News.
Sources said Scavino told Smith’s investigators that as the violence began to escalate that day, Trump “was just not interested” in doing more to stop it.
Sources also said former Trump aide Nick Luna told federal investigators that when Trump was informed that then-Vice President Mike Pence had to be rushed to a secure location, Trump responded, “So what?” — which sources said Luna saw as an unexpected willingness by Trump to let potential harm come to a longtime loyalist.
According to sources, when speaking with Smith’s team, Scavino recalled telling Trump in a phone call the night of Jan. 6: “This is all your legacy here, and there’s smoke coming out of the Capitol.”
Scavino hoped Trump would finally help facilitate a peaceful transfer of power, sources said.
The latest hit piece leaked to ABC News comes just two days before oral arguments for Trump’s immunity claims are brought to the DC Circuit Court of Appeals.
In September Trump was hit with 4 counts in Jack Smith’s January 6 case up in DC: Conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding, obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding, and conspiracy against rights.
Trump’s lawyers argued that Trump is immune from federal prosecution for alleged ‘crimes’ committed while he served as US President.
Jack Smith skipped over the appellate court and went straight to the US Supreme Court on Trump’s immunity claims.
The US Supreme Court late last month, without comment, denied Jack Smith’s request asking the justices to leapfrog the DC Circuit Court of Appeals and issue a ruling on Trump’s immunity argument.
Jack Smith will now have to wait for the US Circuit Court of Appeals for DC to make a decision.
Oral arguments begin on January 9.
