'A brilliant move': Jack Smith praised by legal experts for deploying game-changing statute
During an appearance on MSNBC on Saturday morning a former Justice Department official and ex-U.S. attorney praised special counsel Jack Smith for deploying a statute designed to keep government officials from illegally using the color of law.
Speaking with host Ali Velshi, ex-U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade claimed the statutes that Smith's office is citing has the makings of a "brilliant move" that should lead to a conviction.
Appearing with former Deputy Attorney General Donald Ayer, McQuade noted Smith is using Section 241, a criminal statute that’s part of the Ku Klux Klan Act, that prohibits any conspiracy designed to “injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person in any State, Territory, Commonwealth, Possession, or District in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States.”
As she explained, "What I think is particularly interesting about the use of either of these statutes and why it might be a really brilliant move by Jack Smith is, I think they can make out this case without proving that Donald Trump knew he had lost the election and for conspiracy to defraud the United States."
"You have to show he knew it was a lie, and he was acting on that lie," she elaborated. "As long as you can show that he was trying to do an end run around the process, you can show a violation of this statute. For example, asking [Georgia Secretary of State Brad] Raffensperger to find 11,780 votes. He may have genuinely believed that he somehow earned them because some had been stolen, etc. etc., but he knew that process wasn't the way you do it."
"So that, I think, could be a really good statute because if a jury does not find that the government has proved that Donald Trump knew he had lost the election, they can still win under the statute," she added.
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