Prosecutors are pushing back against Trump’s disparagement claims in the election case

Federal prosecutors on Friday evening pushed back against former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to have them held in contempt of court for continuing to file motions while the case accusing him of plotting to overturn the 2020 election continues. has been suspended.

The filing by prosecutors, working for the special counsel Jack Smith, was the latest salvo in a tit-for-tat battle over the unusual freeze on the election interference case, which is at the heart of the administration’s efforts to oust Mr. Trump to hold on. responsible for reversing his electoral defeat to Joseph R. Biden Jr.

In a short set of court documentsMr. Smith’s team acknowledged that the election interference case had been put on hold while Mr. Trump seeks to have the underlying charges dismissed with broad claims that he is immune from the charges. But the prosecutors said they nevertheless continued to “voluntarily” file motions and turn over discovery materials to Mr. Trump’s lawyers, explaining that the steps they took “do not impose any demands” on the former president.

“Nothing here requires any action by defendant,” prosecutors wrote, “and he fails to explain how the mere receipt of discovery materials that he is not obligated to review, or the early filing of pleadings with the government where he does not yet feel the need to respond, may burden him.”

The skirmish is part of a broader battle over timing that could determine whether the case goes to trial before the November election or, if Trump becomes president again, whether it ultimately goes to trial at all. At every opportunity, Mr. Trump’s lawyers have pushed for a delay, while Mr. Smith has tried to move the case forward, arguing that the public has a continuing interest in a speedy trial.

The battle began last month when Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who is overseeing the case in Federal District Court in Washington, put the proceedings on hold as Mr. Trump launched an attack on the indictment by claiming he was immune from it was because it came into being. of actions he took while in the White House.

His immunity claims, which could have a significant impact on both the viability and timing of the case, will be heard Tuesday by a federal appeals court in Washington. They will likely find their way to the Supreme Court at some point as well.

Concerned that Mr. Trump’s invocation of the immunity issue could delay the trial, which is set to begin in early March, Mr. Smith’s prosecutors have cautiously tried to move the case forward in recent weeks.

A few days after Judge Chutkan’s stay order was imposed, they informed her that they had sent Mr. Trump’s legal team a draft list of exhibits they plan to use at trial, as well as thousands of pages of additional discovery materials.

They then filed a memo two days after Christmas asking Judge Chutkan to ban Trump from making “baseless political claims” or introducing “irrelevant disinformation” during the trial.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers were outraged by the filing and production of discovery materials, accusing Mr. Smith and two of his top deputies, Thomas P. Windom and Molly Gaston, of “partisan misconduct.” In a filing with Judge Chutkan on Thursday, the lawyers said that Mr. Smith’s team treated its order to suspend the case as “a mere suggestion that means less than the paper it is written on.”

The lawyers asked for a series of serious consequences, starting with an order that would force Mr. Smith and his deputies to explain why they should not be held in contempt and pay whatever legal fees Mr. Trump may have incurred from dealing with their recent files and productions.

The lawyers also asked Judge Chutkan to force the prosecutors to tell her why they should not be forced to “immediately withdraw” the last request they filed and be “prohibited from filing any further filings” without express consent .

Prosecutors rejected these arguments in their filing on Friday evening.

“The government has not violated a court order — and never willfully — and the repeated allegations of bias and prosecutorial misconduct remain unfounded,” they wrote.