(Headline USA) Former President Donald Trump’s legal team cited President Joe Biden’s call this week for Trump to be locked up as evidence that one of the federal cases against him needs to be tossed, the New York Post reported.
Trump’s lawyers filed a motion to dismiss special counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case, arguing the charges were politically motivated and that Smith was unlawfully appointed by Attorney General Merrick Garland.
Garland tapped Smith to prosecute Trump at Biden’s request in an effort to “target” the Republican, who was one of Biden’s top political rivals when the charges were filed.
“In November 2022, the Attorney General violated the Appointments Clause by naming private-citizen Smith to target President Trump, while President Trump was campaigning to take back the Oval Office from the Attorney General’s boss, without a statutory basis for doing so,” the filing said.
“Garland did so following improper public urging from President Biden to target President Trump, as reported at the time in 2022, and repeated recently by President Biden through his inappropriate instruction to ‘lock him up’ while Smith presses forward with the case unlawfully as the Presidential election rapidly approaches,” it added.
On Tuesday, Biden appeared to vocally back the multiple lawfare campaigns against Trump, who is now leading in most of the battleground states.
“We gotta lock him up,” the 81-year-old said, before catching himself and trying to walk back the remark. “Politically lock him up,” Biden added. “Lock him out, that’s what we’ve got to do.”
Another case brought by Smith against Trump has already been thrown out by U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, who agreed Garland’s appointment of Smith as special counsel had been “unlawful.”
“Everything that Smith did since Attorney General Garland’s appointment, as President Trump continued his leading campaign against President Biden and then Vice President Harris, was unlawful and unconstitutional,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in their new filing.
