Special Counsel Jack Smith earned praise from former acting solicitor general Neal Katyal for his latest legal filing that struck a blow against former President Donald Trump's immunity claims.
Katyal appeared on MSNBC's "Last Word" to weigh in on Smith's latest Supreme Court response to quash former President Donald Trump's claim that he possesses absolute immunity from criminal prosecution.
"I think he did a very good job of taking Trump's best argument and using it against him," Katyal said.
Essentially, Trump's lawyers made the argument that Smith has been contradicting himself by saying the Supreme Court does not need to hear the immunity argument given that he made a special plea earlier this year for SCOTUS to bypass the D.C. Court of Appeals and hear the case on an expedited basis.
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Katyal said that Smith's retort was masterful to answer Trump's arguments.
"What Smith said is basically, 'No way.'" he said. "The way the Supreme Court operates is they consider themselves a court of review, not a first view; that is to say, they like legal issues to percolate in the lower courts and get ventilated between the different judges before the U.S. Supreme Court gets involved."
"And what Smith said is, 'That's what's happened now. You had this unanimous decision in the Court of Appeals, our nation's second highest court and on that panel of judges was a really diverse group of judges. It wasn't just liberal judges, it was one very prominent conservative judge as well," he elaborated. "Everyone agreed Trump's claim was bogus. So you don't need the Supreme Court to rule."
