Vice President Kamala Harris‘s campaign and top Democratic leaders have largely refrained from commenting on the recently unsealed court filing containing special counsel Jack Smith‘s evidence against former President Donald Trump in the election interference case against the former president.
The 165-page filing detailed allegations that Trump knowingly attempted to overturn the will of the voters after losing the 2020 election despite warnings from members of his team, including former Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump allegedly told his family members, “It doesn’t matter if you won or lost the election. You still have to fight like hell,” according to prosecutors. He also allegedly responded, “So what?” when told of Pence’s dire predicament as rioters stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Neither Harris’s campaign nor the White House responded to the Washington Examiner‘s request for comment on the filing.
Harris’s refusal to comment on the eyebrow-raising allegations in Smith’s filing largely adheres to the same strategy of silence on Trump’s legal problems that she and President Joe Biden have followed since the former president was indicted four times in 2023.
After he was first indicted in March 2023, Trump and the rest of the GOP publicly accused the Justice Department of election interference and Democrats of political payback to prevent him from winning another term in office.
He reiterated those claims this week on Truth Social in several posts.
“FOR 60 DAYS PRIOR TO AN ELECTION, THE DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE IS SUPPOSED TO DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING THAT WOULD TAINT OR INTERFERE WITH SAID ELECTION,” Trump said Thursday. “THEY DISOBEYED THEIR OWN RULE IN FAVOR OF COMPLETE AND TOTAL ELECTION INTERFERENCE. I DID NOTHING WRONG, THEY DID! THE CASE IS A SCAM.”
Although Biden and Harris have usually stayed quiet about Trump’s legal problems to avoid any perception of election meddling, there is one notable exception: Trump’s felony conviction on state charges in New York.
As a former California attorney general, Harris has tried to frame the election against Trump as one between a prosecutor and a felon after a Manhattan jury convicted Trump of 34 counts during a controversial hush money trial.
However, other Democrats have not held back from commenting on Smith’s filing.
“I applaud Special Counsel Jack Smith for providing the clearest picture yet of his 2020 election case against Trump,” wrote Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), the former chairman of the House Select Committee that investigated the Capitol riot. “This transparency is a testament to our commitment to justice prevailing and holding those accountable who undermine our democracy!”
I applaud Special Counsel Jack Smith for providing the clearest picture yet of his 2020 election case against Trump. This transparency is a testament to our commitment to justice prevailing and holding those accountable who undermine our democracy! https://t.co/B1pJcTEpom
— Bennie G. Thompson (@BGThompsonMS) October 2, 2024
In a lengthier statement, Thompson also said Trump was not “immune from prosecution” and called his actions on Jan. 6 “contemptible and depraved.”
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN) called Smith “honest and courageous and determined to get the gangster” in a post on X, while Rep. Robert Garcia (D-CA) called the document “alarming.”
“Yesterday’s legal filings show evidence that Donald Trump’s J6 actions broke the law. He threatened democracy and our electoral integrity. We need accountability,” Garcia said.
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The Washington Examiner reached out to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’s (D-NY) offices for comment, along with the Democratic National Committee.
Haisten Willis contributed to this report.