Special Counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday submitted an application It called on U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to put safeguards in place to protect prospective jurors in Donald Trump’s election subversion case.
Former U.S. Army prosecutor Glenn Kirschner said Smith didn’t just “take the gloves off” with the move. It “looks like he boxed them up, taped the box shut and sent them off to long-term storage,” Kirschner said on a new episode of his “Justice Matters” podcast.
Smith encouraged Chutkan to streamline the jury selection process by using a questionnaire for potential jurors, prohibiting the publication of their information and banning direct contact between attorneys and jurors.
The motion referred to 2024 Republican front-runner Trump’s social media attack on a court official in his civil fraud trial in New York, which prompted a judge to slap the former president.
Trump’s lawyers spoke out against the request, said Kirschner.
“If Donald Trump has proven something to be true: He is willing to endanger witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, judges and their respective family members,” he added. “And he is willing to push his supporters to do all sorts of, let’s call them inappropriate, things to help him avoid responsibility for his crimes.”