The Supreme Court issued two major rulings earlier this year -- on presidential immunity and federal obstruction charges -- that seemed to sharply undermine Special Counsel Jack Smith's 2020 election-related indictment against former President Donald Trump.

Yet, Smith has doggedly pressed forward with his prosecutorial effort against Trump, and now has cited an old circuit court ruling from Trump-appointed Justice Neil Gorsuch to support his arguments against the former president, Newsweek reported.

It is particularly ironic that a 14-year-old opinion of the conservative-leaning Gorsuch, who this year agreed that former presidents enjoy broad immunity from prosecution and that federal prosecutors had misapplied an overbroad interpretation of an obstruction statute, is being used to try to prosecute and imprison Trump in violation of both of the high court's recent rulings.

The Fischer decision and § 1512

On Wednesday, Special Counsel Smith submitted to the Washington D.C. district court a nine-page brief in opposition to a motion to dismiss the indictment on statutory and constitutional grounds filed previously by former President Trump's attorneys.

That motion from Trump sought to dismiss two "obstruction" counts that stemmed from 18 U.S.C. § 1512, specifically subsections (c)(2), which states, "Whoever corruptly -- otherwise obstructs, influences, or impedes any official proceeding, or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both," and (k), which references punishments for "Whoever conspires to commit any offense under this section ..."

Those criminal statutes were applied toward Trump by Smith over the former president's alleged "fake electors" scheme in the aftermath of the 2020 election, but also were separately pressed by federal prosecutors against hundreds of Jan. 6 Capitol riot defendants over their temporary disruption and delay of the congressional certification of the 2020 election results.

However, in the Supreme Court's Fischer v. United States decision in June, a majority of the justices, including Justice Gorsuch, sided with Jan. 6 defendants and ruled that federal prosecutors had gone too far in broadly interpreting and misapplying the § 1512 statutes, which were intended to deal with the destruction of evidence in financial crimes investigations.

Smith cites old Gorsuch opinion in opposition to Trump's motion to dismiss

Special Counsel Smith, who has all but ignored the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity, has now similarly shown his apparent disdain for the Fischer decision, at least as it applies to former President Trump, as he has pressed forward with his prosecutorial effort against Trump.

In his opposition brief, Smith argued that 1512 still applies to Trump because he allegedly "sought to create and use false evidence -- fraudulent electoral
certificates -- as a means of obstructing the certification proceeding."

Smith further attempted in the brief to knock down an "alternative narrative" crafted by Trump about his alleged criminal acts involving state legislators in support of the dismissal motion, as Smith insisted "the defendant’s proffer of extra-record statements by legislators, merits no consideration at this stage, where the Court’s analysis is limited to reviewing the face of the superseding indictment."

In support of that assertion, Smith cited a 2010 decision by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals, United States v. Pope, authored by then-appellate Judge Gorsuch, which upheld the rejection of a defendant's pre-trial motion to dismiss because it involved disputed facts central to the criminal charge that could only be settled during a trial.

Smith quoted Gorsuch as writing, "If contested facts surrounding the commission of the offense would be of any assistance in determining the validity of the motion, Rule 12 doesn’t authorize its disposition before trial."

Trump campaign fires back

Newsweek reported that, in response to Special Counsel Smith's opposition brief, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said this was just the latest example of how "radical Democrats," like the special prosecutor, were fully devoted to interfering with the 2024 election by way of the incessant lawfare against the GOP nominee.

"President Trump is dominating this race and Crazed Liberals throughout the Deep State are freaking out," he said. "As mandated by the Supreme Court's historic decision on Presidential Immunity and other vital jurisprudence, this entire case is a sham and a partisan, Unconstitutional Witch Hunt that should be dismissed entirely -- as should ALL of the remaining Democrat hoaxes."