Jack Smith Plays His Ace Card Against Donald Trump

Prosecutor Jack Smith has recruited one of America's most experienced Supreme Court attorneys in his fight against former President Donald Trump.

In 2016, Michael R. Dreeben became only one of seven lawyers in history to argue more than 100 Supreme Court cases, according to the legal website Law360.

Smith, a special counsel in the Trump federal indictments, lists Dreeben as a "counselor to the special counsel" in both Smith's December 11 petition to the Supreme Court to hear Donald Trump's presidential immunity case and also on his December 30 petition to the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals on the same subject. [See brief below]

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote on her blog, Civil Discourse, on Monday that Smith's Court of Appeals brief "is some of the finest lawyering you will see. That's no surprise because Jack Smith was able to bring one of the country's best Supreme Court practitioners on board, former deputy solicitor general Michael Dreeben."

This is Dreeben's second time being a "counselor to the special counsel" in a Trump case.

In 2017, Dreeben served as counselor to special counsel Robert Mueller in the investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and potential obstruction of justice. In the Mueller case, he "led the team responsible for giving legal and strategic advice to the Special Counsel and all prosecution teams," according to a biography on the website of Harvard Law School where Dreeben was previously a lecturer.

Dreeben will act in the same capacity for Smith and his team—a legal consultant as the case moves towards the Supreme Court.

Dreeben knows the style of many of the Supreme Court judges. According to the legal website SCOTUSblog, Dreeben's first case before the Supreme Court was a medical fraud case with John Roberts, now the Supreme Court chief justice, representing the other side.

According to a profile on the website of Georgetown Law School in Washington, D.C, where Dreeben lectures, he served in the Office of Solicitor General in the U.S. Department of Justice, first as an assistant to the solicitor general and then as a deputy solicitor general.

As deputy solicitor general from 1994 to 2019, Dreeben "supervised the criminal docket for the United States in the U.S. Supreme Court. Dreeben has argued 105 Supreme Court cases on behalf of the United States and briefed hundreds of other cases in the Supreme Court and in the lower federal courts," it says.

Trump was indicted on four counts of allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021 riot at the U.S. Capitol. A jury is due to be selected in Washington D.C. in February and the trial is due to begin on March 4. It is one of four criminal cases that Trump is facing while he campaigns as frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

He has pleaded not guilty to charges in all the cases and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt. Newsweek sought email comment on Tuesday from Donald Trump's attorney.

The filing was submitted ahead of oral arguments scheduled for January 9.

In December, Tanya Chutkan, the judge in Trump's election interference trial, refused his application for presidential immunity. Trump is now appealing that refusal to the Washington, D.C Court of Appeals. All pre-trial motions in Chutkan's court have been halted while the Court of Appeals decides on Trump's presidential immunity and Trump's lawyers are refusing to handle any trial documents sent to them by Smith's office, including a proposed trial schedule.

Smith, with Dreeben as adviser, had sought to bypass this appeal process by seeking a Supreme Court decision on Trump's presidential immunity.

On December 23, the Supreme Court declined Smith's request to fasttrack the case. However, it will almost certainly hear the case after it is considered by the Washington D.C. Court of Appeal.