MSNBC host Alex Wagner was flabbergasted by a bizarre argument put forward by Donald Trump’s attorneys in a new legal filing on Wednesday.
In the document, Trump’s attorneys compared special counsel Jack Smith to the Grinch in a filing unsuccessfully asking a federal appeals court to reject Smith’s request for an expedited appeals process in his election subversion case.
The filing read:
This proposed schedule would make President Trump’s opening brief due the day after Christmas. This proposed schedule would require attorneys and support staff to work round-the-clock through the holidays, inevitably disrupting family and travel plans. It is as if the Special Counsel ‘growled, with his Grinch fingers nervously drumming, “I must find some way to keep Christmas from coming. … But how?”’
Wagner said it was “one of the most spectacularly unserious legal arguments I have ever heard, in one of the most serious cases this country has ever grappled with.”
“They literally called Jack Smith the Grinch!” she continued, adding that “the whole thing is extra comical when you think about how this entire case is about Trump’s actions in the lead-up to Jan. 6, when Trump and his lawyers worked around the clock through the holidays to try and overturn the results of the 2020 election.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit granted Smith’s request in a ruling late Wednesday. Trump is seeking to have his case dismissed on grounds he should be shielded by presidential immunity for actions he took surrounding the 2020 election. A federal judge ruled against him; Trump is appealing that decision.
In an attempt to bypass appeals court process, which could push back the March 4 start date of Trump’s trial, Smith has also asked the Supreme Court to rule on the matter.
Watch Wagner’s commentary on MSNBC below.