We should remind people that the trial won’t take place until after the election, but you reported in your piece today that this dossier is expected to contain a lot of new information. Before we get to those details about what might be in there, what’s the basic purpose of this move right now by Jack Smith?
Cheney: You’re going to hear a lot of complaining that this is Jack Smith trying to influence the election. This was really made necessary, in a sense, by the Supreme Court putting this case on hold for eight months. The ruling that they issued on presidential immunity, which forced Jack Smith to go back to the drawing board for how he was going to craft and frame his case against Trump, created this process.
What happened is the Supreme Court said, The judge in your trial, Tanya Chutkan, has to decide whether any of the conduct, any evidence Jack Smith wants to use against you is protected by presidential immunity. Smith said, Let me file all my evidence and show it to you, Judge Chutkan, and you can decide whether it’s subject to presidential immunity or not. And Trump’s attorney said, Well, hold on, if you’re going to start dumping your evidence on the public docket, that’s a month before the election, this is election interference. The judge said, From the beginning, I’ve said I’m not thinking about the election calendar. She also hasn’t said she’s going to make it public, which is the biggest question at the moment. But she has said she will receive Jack Smith’s brief and review it and decide eventually what, if any of it, will become public.