DOJ says Jack Smith’s delay in Trump case is no reason to do the same for Jan. 6 defendants

Special counsel Jack Smith’s decision to pause his prosecution of President-elect Donald Trump is no reason to do the same for members of the mob that attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, the Justice Department argued Monday.

Several Jan. 6 defendants have used Smith’s call for a three-week breather — quickly endorsed by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan — as proof that all criminal cases connected to the Jan. 6 attack deserve a similar slowdown.

“To deny this motion, in the face of the Justice Department’s official position [in the Trump case], would run contrary to the interests of justice and likely subject the defendant to criminal convictions for no purpose other than expediency,” argued William Shipley, an attorney for Jan. 6 defendant Stephen Baker, who was set to begin a trial in his case Tuesday.

Prosecutors responded Monday, saying Trump’s case was unique and not indicative of the government’s position in other Jan. 6 cases.

“There is a public interest in the prompt and efficient administration of justice. The government and the Court have endeavored to deliver that interest,” Assistant U.S Attorney Isia Jasiewicz wrote in a response to Baker’s request.

“The defendant’s citation to Special Counsel Jack Smith’s motion to vacate a briefing schedule in the matter of United States v. Trump … is inapposite,” she wrote. “That motion refers to the ‘unprecedented circumstance’ of a criminal defendant being ‘expected to be certified as President-elect on January 6, 2025, and inaugurated on January 20, 2025.’ The need to ‘determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy,’ is not similarly implicated in this case, where the defendant is a private citizen.”

A slew of Jan. 6 defendants have begun to try to delay their cases as they wait to see if Trump follows through on his broad promise to pardon them.