Jack Smith Laid Out His Evidence. What’s Coming Next Might Give You Heartburn. (2025)

Donald Trump has been convicted of 34 felony counts in the New York hush money case—but there’s a lengthy appeals process ahead. And what ever happened to the other three cases against him—Jack Smith’s federal election interference and classified documents cases, and Fani Willis’ Georgia election interference case? All three have hit various roadblocks. To make it easier to follow all of Trump’s ongoing legal entanglements, each week, we’ll keep you updated on the latest developments in Keeping Up With the Trump Trials.

Last week, the federal Jan. 6 case against Trump took a dramatic turn when Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed a redacted version of special counsel Jack Smith’s 165-page motion filled with evidence prosecutors have against the former president. Meanwhile, attorneys for Trump filed a motion of their own that sought to dismiss Smith’s federal election interference case entirely. And the Supreme Court declined to hear a case that deals with whether the government can force social media companies to comply with search warrants.

Smith’s Unsealed Motion Lays Out a Lot of Evidence

Last week, special counsel Jack Smith’s new brief detailing Trump’s alleged election interference became public. In the filing, Smith also laid out why Trump’s criminal actions constituted “unofficial acts” that are not protected by the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision and why all the evidence he wants to introduce is fair game to use at trial.

“Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted,” Smith wrote. “A function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role.”

While systematically going through each of Trump’s moves in the months leading up to the November 2020 election, the weeks following it, and the former president’s role during and after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Smith insisted Trump took these actions and conducted these conversations as a private U.S. citizen who also happened to be a candidate for president—not in his official capacity as president of the United States.

Slate highlighted the biggest takeaways from Smith’s unsealed motion here.

Trump Pushes Back on the Special Counsel’s Obstruction Charges

One day after Smith’s behemoth motion was revealed to the public, the former president’s lawyers were busy filing their own motion to dismiss the special counsel’s superseding indictment on the basis of “false claims that President Trump is somehow responsible for events at the Capitol on January 6, 2021.”

The motion addresses Smith’s decision to keep obstruction charges against Trump, a controversial move on the special counsel’s part because of the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Fischer v. United States. The obstruction charge uses a section of Sarbanes-Oxley, a law passed in the wake of the Enron scandal and subsequent cover-up, that prosecutors broadly applied to any obstruction of an official proceeding. But in June, the Supreme Court narrowed the law’s scope, ruling that it only applies to interference with official documents. The decision may force the Department of Justice to reevaluate a number of convictions related to the Jan. 6 insurrection.

Yet Smith kept the obstruction charges against Trump, and the former president’s attorneys argue that should not be able to stand. “Under Fischer, the Office may not use the statute as a catchall provision to criminalize otherwise-lawful activities selectively mischaracterized as obstructive by those with opposing political views,” Trump’s attorneys wrote. They also argued that Sarbanes-Oxley requires “proof of evidence impairment coupled with corrupt intent” and that Smith lacks the evidence for either.

The motion also insists Trump’s conversations with Mike Pence do not amount to the evidence necessary to prove a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley. Trump’s attorneys argue he “is at least presumptively immune from prosecution based on those interactions” with Pence.

They also attempt to justify Trump and his inner circle’s efforts to get fake certificates that falsely certified Trump won the 2020 election in seven battleground states that were sent to Congress. “Some of the certificates were refused by the Archivist and the Vice President, so the Office has not adequately alleged that those objects impacted the proceeding in any way,” they wrote.

The attorneys also pledged to file another motion responding to the special counsel’s unsealed court filing.

Supreme Court Declines Getting Involved in X Lawsuit

The Supreme Court is back in session, and the justices have rejected a case related to a dispute between social media company X, special counsel Jack Smith, and Trump over the former president’s old Twitter account.

Last year, Smith wanted access to Trump’s X account—the company was still called Twitter at the time—for his Jan. 6 prosecution and issued the social media company a search warrant. At first, X refused to comply since the special counsel also wanted a nondisclosure agreement in place that would prevent X from notifying Trump about the warrant. The social media company accrued $350,000 in fines until a federal district court judge ruled the warrant was lawful and also approved the nondisclosure agreement, and X complied with the warrant.

However, last year Elon Musk, who purchased Twitter and renamed it X—and is also currently bankrolling a pro-Trump super PAC—continued to appeal that decision to stop the Justice Department from enforcing search warrants and nondisclosures, arguing that it violated the company’s free speech rights. The case went all the way up to the Supreme Court, with X’s lawyers arguing that the justices must weigh in to prevent prosecutors from taking similar actions again. But the court declined to take up the case with no explanation or noted dissents.

That means the lower court’s decision remains in place, and X must comply with future search warrants served by the federal government or face further penalties.