‘No Legal Need For It’: Andrew McCarthy Says Smith Brief ‘Poisoning’ Jury Pool

Former federal prosecutor Andy McCarthy accused special counsel Jack Smith Thursday of tainting a potential jury pool with the release of a brief tied to the federal election interference case against former President Donald Trump.

United States District Judge Tanya Chutkan of the District of Columbia released Smith’s brief, which sought to address the Supreme Court’s July 1 ruling regarding presidential immunity in the election interference case, Wednesday evening over the objection of Trump’s attorneys. McCarthy said that most judges would have expressed concerns over the effects the release of the brief would have on potential jurors.

“The point of this was to try to get this information, which has been hashed out again and again before the American people. None of this is new, but the idea was to get the evidence out in as spectacular a way as possible. And by Smith’s light, hopefully get Trump convicted in the run-up to the election in hopes of influencing the outcome of the election. And now we have the release of this book-length size recitation of Smith’s case under circumstances where there is no possibility of having this trial before November and there was no reason to have it brought out in public now.”

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“In fact, in most cases, a judge would be concerned about, for example, poisoning or prejudicing against the defendant a jury pool. In most cases a judge would be very concerned that evidence not be broadcast in public without the usual due process cautions that go on in a trial that the defendant be presumed innocent, the fact that allegations are not evidence of anything,” McCarthy continued. “The point of releasing this now can only be to affect the election. There is no legal need for it.”