Oversized filing in election subversion case 'not only appropriate but necessary': expert

The special counsel in former President Donald Trump's election subversion case is expected to submit an "oversized" brief this week, and experts say it's "not only appropriate" — but necessary.

As far as Trump's White House lawyer Ty Cobb sees it, having special counsel Jack Smith outline his case in 180 pages will not impact the 2020 election case before the Washington, D.C. district court, according to Salon's Russell Payne.

Trump's lawyers fought the Justice Department's request to expand the page count when arguing against the request to Judge Tanya Chutkan.

Cobb even went so far as to compare it to Robert Mueller's report.

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“The Mueller report [was] 400 pages of we ‘didn’t find anything,’ this will be 180 pages of evidence and the evidence will be powerful, undeniable and persuasive,” Cobb claimed. “The issue for the judge to decide is whether it infringes on official acts assigned to the presidency and whether it could chill any decision-making by the president if the areas involved cross that constitutional line.”

The Mueller report said investigators found "multiple acts" by Trump that were "capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations, including the Russian-interference and obstruction investigations."

Even so, Mueller refrained from recommending prosecution, saying that there were “difficult [legal] issues that would need to be resolved,” in order to reach a conclusion that the crime of obstruction of justice was committed by Trump.

Cobb's comments represented an outlier in legal commentary on the matter to Payne.

Constitutional law professor James Sample, for example, agreed the filing was necessary because Smith must deal with two complex issues: the case itself and the argument that presidential immunity shouldn't apply to the charges. In July, the U.S. Supreme Court gave Trump an edge in its ruling on immunity.

"An oversized, highly detailed legal brief, detailing with as much factual specificity as is possible, is not only appropriate but necessary," said Sample.

“It is precisely because Mr. Trump, along with his nakedly partisan Supreme Court allies, has so stunningly succeeded in thwarting the truth-finding mechanism of an adversarial trial, that Jack Smith’s filing is essential both for the task of categorizing official and non-official acts, but also for the filing’s value in adding to the historical narrative of one of the gravest attacks on democracy in American history,” Sample continued.

Law professor Bennett Gershman at Pace University examined Trump's case through the lens of a former prosecutor. In his mind, Trump's actions to overturn the 2020 election "clearly were not official acts."

Trump's social media posts and interactions with co-conspirators back up the claim, he said.

“The filing will hammer home these points, probably reveal and detail supporting evidence that has not yet been made public, and easily distinguish evidence of official acts,” Gershman said. “For Trump to claim presidential immunity for the actions described above is baseless and absurd.”

Another former federal prosecutor cautioned that one major thing eager readers should expect is several redactions, particularly those that will make him look bad.

"Trump’s team very much does not want all those facts aired (and analyzed) in public," she said.

Read the full interviews at Salon here.