While Americans are less than two weeks away from picking their next president, Special Counsel Jack Smith is still prosecuting former President Donald Trump over his alleged actions following the election in 2020.

According to Newsweek, part of Smith's case against Trump includes excerpts from a book published by former Vice President Mike Pence. 

Pence recalls "contentious" White House meeting

Newsweek reported that the passages are among 2,000 pages worth of evidence which was released late last week by Judge Tanya Chutkan.

Taken from Pence's 2022 memoir title, "So Help Me God," they recount events which led up to the January 6, 2021 riot on Capitol Hill.

One of them included an argumentative White House meeting in which Trump's advisers clashed over how to handle the election's results.

"What began as a briefing that Thursday afternoon quickly turned into a contentious back-and-forth between the campaign lawyers and a growing group of outside attorneys led by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell," Pence recalled.

Pence: "Seeds" of January 6 "were being sown" at meeting

"After the campaign lawyers gave a sober and somewhat pessimistic report on the state of election challenges, the outside cast of characters went on the attack ... Giuliani told the president over the speakerphone, 'Your lawyers are not telling you the truth, Mr President,'" the former vice president wrote.

"Even in an office well acquainted with rough-and-tumble debates, it was a new low," Pence continued before lamenting that the meeting went "downhill from there".

He described how a "normally restrained and affable" campaign lawyer named Justin Clark "lashed out harshly" at Giuliani and Powell, telling them that they "didn't know what they were talking about."

Trump ultimately put Giuliani and Powell in charge of his election related legal strategy and expressed support for their belief that President Joe Biden had won via fraud.

"In the end, that day the president made the fateful decision to put Giuliani and Sidney Powell in charge of the legal strategy ... The seeds were being sown for a tragic day in January," Pence insisted.

Legal analyst says release is politically motivated

Some observers have suggested that Chutkan and Smith's push to release the material has more to do with influencing voters than it does the administration of justice.

Titled a “Motion for Immunity Determination,” it seems more like a “Motion for an Election Determination.” Yet, the most disturbing part of Smith’s October Surprise was that it was not in the least bit surprising... https://t.co/HjlVMXTI8C

— Jonathan Turley (@JonathanTurley) October 7, 2024

One of them is George Washington University Law School professor and Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley, who wrote in a blog post that "there was no reason to release this filing shortly before an election" since "any trial would occur in 2025."