TESTIMONY: Smith v. Trump — justice moves forward despite claimed presidential immunity

A judicial ruling that cracks the wall of silence

On June 9, 2026, a federal court handed down a ruling that, amid the permanent noise of the Trump era, deserves careful attention: the discovery phase — the collection of evidence and testimony — in the civil case Smith v. Trump, concerning the events of January 6, 2021, can resume. Not entirely, not against Trump himself, but against Trump's campaign, the Proud Boys, and other defendants. It is a crack in the wall of impunity, and it is far from symbolic.

The backdrop is one of a judicial war of attrition that Donald Trump's inner circle has waged for years: dilatory appeals, invocations of immunity, recusals, postponements. Every maneuver buys time. Every delay erodes collective memory. But sometimes a judge holds firm. And sometimes the truth advances in spite of everything.

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law calls it a "significant milestone"

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, an organization founded under the Kennedy administration to defend civil rights, issued a statement describing the ruling as a "significant milestone toward accountability." That is not empty rhetoric: it is a cold assessment of what it means to keep the discovery process open when the former president is running out the clock.

Here lies the paradox: Trump benefits from a stay of proceedings on his individual claims while his immunity appeal is examined, but his allies, his campaign, and the paramilitary groups who took part in the assault on the Capitol remain exposed. The case is therefore moving forward — differently, but forward.

I have followed this case for years, and I will admit a kind of exhaustion — not with justice itself, but with the deliberately draining pace of the appeals. The strategy is clear: make the proceedings so long, so costly, so technical that the public eventually tunes out. Resisting that calculation is itself a civic act.

A civil action distinct from criminal prosecutions

The Smith v. Trump case is a civil action, separate from the criminal proceedings brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith — who himself dropped his charges following Trump's election. This civil case seeks to establish the liability of Trump, his campaign, the Proud Boys, and other actors in inciting the assault on the Capitol and in the harm inflicted on members of Congress and their staffs.

The discovery phase is crucial: it is what allows plaintiffs to access internal communications, emails, campaign archives, and exchanges between the organizers of the rally and the groups mobilized on January 6. Without discovery, the trial is a hollow shell. With it, the facts can be established before a jury.

The immunity question: an appeal in suspension

Trump invoked presidential immunity to seek a full stay of proceedings against him. The court agreed to freeze the portion directly concerning him while his immunity appeal is examined. But — and this is the central point — it refused to extend that stay to the other defendants, notably the Trump 2020 campaign and the Proud Boys.

That distinction is legally fundamental: presidential immunity, whatever its ultimate scope, covers only acts performed by the president as president. It does not shield a private electoral organization, nor paramilitary groups. The court therefore maintained its course on the elements for which immunity cannot be invoked.

The notion of presidential immunity, as debated since the Supreme Court's July 2024 ruling, troubles me deeply. What was meant to be a shield against partisan prosecution has become an extraordinary dilatory weapon. When immunity is used to slow the pursuit of truth about an assault on democracy, something has gone profoundly wrong.

A group convicted criminally, now pursued civilly

The Proud Boys have already been convicted criminally of sedition and conspiracy in connection with January 6. Their leader, Enrique Tarrio, is serving a prison sentence. But criminal convictions do not exhaust civil avenues: victims may still sue for damages, and that is precisely what this proceeding allows.

The resumption of discovery against the Proud Boys means plaintiffs can now access the group's internal communications from before and during the assault, their financing, their connections with other actors in the campaign. It is a net tightening — independently of the presidential immunity question.

The Trump campaign facing disclosure obligations

The resumption of discovery against the Trump campaign may be the most significant element of all. A campaign is a private legal entity. It is not covered by presidential immunity. It is subject to the ordinary rules of civil procedure, including the obligation to produce requested documents.

That could potentially include internal emails, strategic plans, communications with the organizers of the Ellipse rally, and exchanges with Republican elected officials. The list is long, and the campaign has every incentive to invoke every available privilege to delay or limit these disclosures.

An electoral campaign is a private machine. It recruits, spends, communicates, mobilizes — and when that mobilization turns into an assault on an institution, it cannot hide behind the presidential mantle. That is a legal truism, but one that deserves to be stated loudly and clearly.

Serial appeals to buy time

Since the start of his second term, Trump and his legal teams have systematically used appellate procedures to delay progress in multiple cases. This strategy is documented: delays on criminal immunity, delays on jurisdiction in the hush money case, multiple appeals in civil cases. Each step buys months.

The site Lawfare, a reference on national security and constitutional law, published a detailed analysis in June 2026 of what it calls the "trials of the Trump administration" — an inventory of the dozens of ongoing proceedings that describe a legal landscape without precedent in American history.

District courts battered by appellate reversals

Paradoxically, the district judges who have most resisted the Trump administration's policies have also been the ones most frequently reversed by appellate courts. An analysis by Colorado Politics in June 2026 documents this tension: judges at the trial court level who issue broad injunctions are repeatedly told by higher courts that their reach exceeds their authority.

It is one of the system's paradoxes: the more judges try to restrain the executive, the more they expose themselves to procedural corrections that ultimately weaken their authority. The net result is a judicial landscape where the executive advances — slowed, but rarely stopped.

This picture reminds me of a quote from a judge I once read: "The law is a fragile edifice that every generation must defend." In the United States right now, that edifice holds — barely. But it holds. And it is there, in that stubborn resistance of life-tenured magistrates, that hope resides.

A progressive and dangerous normalization

Five years after the assault on the Capitol, it is fair to ask what mainstream America makes of it. Polls show a lasting fracture: a majority of Republicans continues to downplay the events of January 6, 2021, some even describing them as a "peaceful demonstration." The factual reality — 147 police officers injured, several deaths, Congress evacuated under emergency protocols — struggles to break through against the alternative narrative.

That normalization has legal consequences: it feeds the rhetoric of defendants who frame the prosecutions as "political persecution." It makes empaneling impartial juries harder in certain jurisdictions. It erodes the legitimacy of the proceedings in the eyes of a portion of the public.

What is at stake for American democracy

Beyond the legal questions, Smith v. Trump raises a fundamental question: can a democracy function when attempts to subvert its institutions go without consequence? The American institutional response so far has been cautious, incremental, and often frustrating to those hoping for a swift resolution.

But the accumulation of proceedings, however slow, however partial, builds a precedent: the events of January 6 are not erased. They remain in judicial archives, in testimony given under oath, in the documents that discovery will produce. History is built this way, one brick at a time.

America has a remarkable capacity for self-correction — slowly, painfully, imperfectly, but genuinely. What I see in this June 9th ruling is a confirmation that the institutions hold. Not because they are perfect, but because people — judges, lawyers, activists — refuse to let them fall.

The Supreme Court's July 2024 ruling

In July 2024, the Supreme Court ruled in Trump v. United States that presidents enjoy "presumptive" immunity for their official acts. That decision opened a gap that Trump's lawyers immediately exploited across multiple civil and criminal proceedings.

The central question — what constitutes an "official act" in the context of January 6th? — remains deeply contested. The plaintiffs in Smith v. Trump contend that mobilizing an electoral campaign and inciting a march on the Capitol are not official presidential acts. Trump's lawyers argue the opposite.

The limits of immunity under developing case law

Lower courts that have examined this question have so far tended to draw lines: immunity applies to acts performed in the exercise of the president's constitutional functions, not to campaign acts or politically partisan conduct. If that distinction holds, it is crucial to the case's future.

The June 9th decision to maintain discovery against the campaign and the Proud Boys fits that logic: the court signals that presidential immunity, whatever its ultimate scope, cannot extend to actors who are not the president.

I will be honest: I do not know where this case will end. American law is complex, the current Supreme Court unpredictable, and politics pollutes everything. What I do know is that allowing discovery to proceed is allowing truth to exist on the record. And truth on the record is already something.

A signal for other ongoing civil actions

The Smith v. Trump case is not the only civil action linked to January 6. Several members of Congress, Capitol officers, and other victims have filed separate proceedings. The June 9th ruling sends a signal to those other cases: the strategy of a total stay through an immunity appeal will not work against all defendants in all proceedings.

A map of the judicial landscape is emerging: some parts of the January 6 litigation are moving forward, others are frozen, but the whole cannot be paralyzed by a single immunity appeal. The terrain is complex, but it is not hopeless.

The effect on witnesses and evidence

Five years after the events, the question of evidence and witnesses is critical. Phones have been wiped, documents destroyed, memories have faded. But discovery can still unearth archived digital communications, financial transactions, and metadata. Digital traces are tenacious.

The resumption of discovery against the campaign and the Proud Boys opens the door to document-production requests that may supplement, or even contradict, the narratives that have circulated over five years. That is the slow, patient work of factual truth.

Judicial truth is not the same as historical truth, nor as political truth. But it has this precious quality: it is produced under oath, subjected to adversarial scrutiny, and archived for eternity. In a world saturated with disinformation, that kind of truth has incalculable value.

An organization with deep roots in the civil rights struggle

The Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law was founded in 1963 by President John F. Kennedy, who had called on private-sector lawyers to contribute to the civil rights struggle. Since then, the organization has represented clients in landmark cases and maintains an active presence in litigation concerning voting rights, equality, and now democratic accountability.

Its statement calling the June 9th ruling a "significant milestone toward accountability" is not incidental. This is an organization accustomed to measuring every advance against the long arc of history. If it calls this a significant milestone, it is one.

The legal community as a democratic safeguard

Beyond the Lawyers' Committee, it is the entire American legal community — defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges, law professors, civil rights organizations — that forms an informal but very real network of resistance to the excesses of executive power. This network is imperfect, inconsistent, and itself crossed by political logics. But it exists, and it acts.

Publications like Lawfare, organizations like the ACLU, individually committed attorneys — together they form a counterforce that, in the current American context, plays a role that traditional political opposition can no longer always play.

I often think of those lawyers who work in the shadows, who have no media platform, who spend their nights reading depositions and drafting briefs. They are the invisible armature of democracy. We do not see them. We rarely hear them. But without them, the edifice collapses.

Judicial wins, defeats, and much uncertainty

At the midpoint of his second term, Trump presents a mixed judicial record. On one hand, several of his most controversial policies have been upheld on appeal or by the Supreme Court. On the other, dozens of court rulings have blocked or slowed entire swaths of his agenda: immigration, civil service dismissals, sanctions, deportations.

In the specific case of January 6 and its judicial aftermath, the balance is particularly ambiguous. The federal criminal prosecution was dropped. Some civil proceedings have been frozen. But others are moving forward, and the discovery resuming against the campaign and the Proud Boys is a reminder that the wall is not total.

The institutional legacy of this period

Whatever the final outcome of each proceeding, the period America has been living through since 2021 will leave lasting institutional marks. The judicial decisions rendered, the precedents established or refused, the limits of presidential immunity drawn or erased — all of this will constitute the constitutional law of the next half-century.

The fact that proceedings like Smith v. Trump continue to advance, however partially, however laboriously, means America has not yet decided that the events of January 6 were acceptable. And that is considerable political information.

I was not at the Capitol on January 6th. I only saw the images, like millions of viewers around the world. But I know what I felt: shock, anger, and a question that has never left me. Will it happen again? The answer depends in part on what justice does. And for now, justice is trying.

A decapitated but not disbanded group

The conviction of Enrique Tarrio and other Proud Boys leaders for sedition decapitated the organization. But similar groups — Oath Keepers, Three Percenters, and more recent formations — continue to exist and recruit. The ecosystem of violent right-wing extremism in the United States was not dismantled by criminal convictions.

The civil prosecution against the Proud Boys in Smith v. Trump could produce a deterrent effect that criminal prosecutions did not fully achieve: financial damages, potentially significant, attacking the group's resources and its ability to function.

The link between extremism and mainstream politics

What makes Smith v. Trump particularly complex is the connection it implies between an extremist group and a presidential campaign. That connection — if discovery documents it solidly — would raise fundamental questions about political responsibility and institutional complicity.

That is precisely why the proceedings are so fiercely contested. The stakes are not only judicial: they are political, historical, and identity-defining for a large portion of the Republican electorate that refuses to admit its movement was complicit in an attempt to subvert democracy.

The link between the Proud Boys and the Trump campaign is one of the most explosive elements of this case. If discovery documents it, if emails or phone records establish direct coordination, history will have to be rewritten. And that is perhaps why the fight to stop this discovery from moving forward is so fierce.

Protecting members of Congress as a foundation of democracy

The plaintiffs in Smith v. Trump include members of Congress, congressional staffers, and security officers who suffered physical violence and psychological trauma during the assault on January 6. Their right to be compensated for the harm they suffered is a matter of fundamental civil rights.

The ability of an elected member of Congress to perform their duties without fear of violence orchestrated by a presidential candidate is a minimum condition for democratic functioning. If this violation can be committed with impunity, the precedent is catastrophic for the future of representative democracy.

The right to truth as a civil right

Beyond financial compensation, the plaintiffs and, more broadly, the American people have a right to the truth about what happened on January 6, 2021. That truth — who decided what, who funded what, who communicated with whom — can only be established through a rigorous judicial process including full discovery.

By authorizing the resumption of discovery, even partial, the court on June 9th made a choice in favor of that right. It is a choice that comes at political cost, that will trigger counterattacks, but one that commits American justice to a direction that can fairly be called courageous.

The right to truth is a right we invoke too rarely in discussions about democracy. We speak of the right to vote, of freedom of expression, of the separation of powers. But democracy also requires that facts be established and acknowledged. Without shared factual truth, no deliberation is possible. And without deliberation, there is no democracy.

The domino effect on allied democracies

What unfolds in American federal courts does not stay within the borders of the United States. Across the Western world, democracies watch the January 6 proceedings with anxiety and hope. If impunity triumphs in the United States, it sends a devastating signal: attempts to forcibly subvert democratic institutions are cost-free.

This is particularly significant in the context of the war in Ukraine, where Zelensky is fighting precisely to defend democratic principles in the face of authoritarian aggression. An America that fails to hold its own actors accountable for subverting its institutions weakens the credibility of the democratic model it claims to champion.

Putin, China, and the adversaries who are watching

Vladimir Putin, the Xi Jinping regime, the Iranian leadership — all are watching American proceedings closely. Every time impunity prevails, they read it as confirmation that democracy is too soft, too slow, too divided to defend itself. Every time justice advances, however imperfectly, it is a response to that narrative.

The ruling of June 9, 2026 in Smith v. Trump is therefore also an international message: the United States has not abandoned the idea that no one is above the law. An imperfect message, a fragile one, but a real one.

I think of the Ukrainian soldiers defending their country against an army that denies their right to exist. I think of the citizens of Hong Kong who have seen their freedoms confiscated. And I tell myself that what plays out in American courtrooms concerns them too. Democracy is whole, or it is nothing.

The categories of documents likely to be disclosed

In an American civil discovery proceeding, parties can obtain any material "reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence." That is a broad standard. For the Trump campaign, it could include internal emails on planning the January 6 rally, communications with Republican elected officials, exchanges with lobbying groups or media.

For the Proud Boys, documents could cover their operational plans before the assault, their communications with campaign associates, their financing structures. Each document produced is a building block in constructing or demolishing a case for coordination.

Depositions as a source of sworn truth

Beyond documents, discovery enables depositions — sworn examinations of parties and witnesses. These depositions are unique opportunities to obtain testimony that will later be usable at trial, and that will become public records in judicial archives.

If campaign staffers, Trump associates, or Proud Boys members must answer under oath about the events of January 6, their responses — truthful or not — become judicial facts. Lying under oath is perjury. The truth establishes facts. In either case, reality advances.

The deposition is a formidable instrument of truth. Under the lights, with an adverse attorney asking precise questions, it is hard to maintain a fabricated narrative for long. The Trump campaign and the Proud Boys will have to choose: the truth, or the risk of being caught in an outright lie under oath.

The possible scenarios by the end of 2026

By the end of 2026, several developments are conceivable. Either discovery produces significant documents that strengthen the plaintiffs' case and increase pressure for a settlement or trial. Or the defendants manage to limit or delay disclosures through new appeals and invoked privileges. Or an appellate ruling on immunity fundamentally changes the configuration of the case.

The uncertainty is real. I cannot predict which path will open. What I can say is that the resumption of discovery in June 2026 has put the case back in motion after months of stagnation. Movement, even slow movement, is preferable to paralysis.

The stakes of the 2026 midterm elections

The American midterm elections of November 2026 add an inescapable political dimension: if the results shift the composition of Congress, that could affect the political support or resources available for the proceedings. Politics and justice are supposed to be separate. In practice, they interact constantly.

What Smith v. Trump reminds us, in this context, is that certain judicial proceedings transcend electoral cycles. Once discovery is launched, the documents produced exist. The depositions taken exist. The judicial record builds independently of electoral outcomes.

I am not naive: politics influences justice, even in the United States. But justice also has its own inertia, its own logics, its own actors who refuse to yield. The coming months will be decisive in determining whether Smith v. Trump is a step toward truth or another illustration of impunity. I lean toward the former hypothesis — cautiously, but sincerely.

A partial ruling, but symbolically powerful

The ruling of June 9, 2026 authorizing the resumption of discovery in Smith v. Trump against the campaign and the Proud Boys is not a total victory. It does not resolve Trump's immunity appeal. It does not guarantee an imminent trial. It does not settle the fundamental constitutional questions still pending.

But it represents something essential: the conviction that American judicial institutions, despite the pressures, despite the dilatory maneuvers, despite political polarization, can still function. They can still say: "the proceedings move forward." In the current context, that is already considerable.

The long time of democratic justice

Democratic justice does not always deliver its verdicts within the deadlines history's urgency demands. It takes time. It proceeds in stages. It is subject to appeals, corrections, and revisions. That apparent weakness is in reality a strength: the slowness of justice is the price of its rigor.

What one can hope, at bottom, is that this rigor will ultimately produce an established truth about what happened on January 6, 2021. Not a political truth, not a media truth, but a judicial truth, built on evidence, on testimony under oath, and on the rigorous challenge of arguments. That truth, when it comes, will be hard to erase.

Justice is slow. Sometimes too slow. Sometimes unjust. But it remains, in our imperfect societies, the best available tool for establishing facts and drawing consequences from them. I refuse despair in the face of its delays. I choose, with all my reservations and all my doubts, to trust it. Not out of naivety, but because the alternative — total cynicism — is infinitely more dangerous.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

Method and sources

This text keeps the basic distinction between verified facts and interpretive analysis. The rule never changes: a factual claim is published only when a verifiable source supports it, and the sources this article actually used are listed under Sources, never here.

Primary source families used by the publication, when the story has them: official statements from governments and international institutions, public statements by political leaders, reports from intergovernmental organisations, dispatches from recognised international news agencies.

Secondary source families: specialised publications, internationally recognised news media, analyses from established research institutions, reports from industry organisations.

When an article cites statistical, economic or geopolitical data, it comes from the institutions that produce it (intergovernmental organisations, central banks, national statistics offices), and the exact institution is named under Sources.

Nature of the analysis

The analyses, interpretations and perspectives in the analytical sections of this article are a critical, contextual synthesis based on the information available, the trends observed and the expert comments cited in the sources consulted.

My role is to interpret these facts, to set them in the context of today's geopolitical and economic dynamics, and to give them a coherent meaning within the larger story of the changes shaping our time. These analyses reflect expertise built through continuous observation of international affairs and an understanding of the strategic mechanisms that drive global actors.

This article describes a documented state of affairs on its publication date, not a prediction: later developments may shift its outlook. No update is promised in advance; when an article is corrected or completed, the change is dated in the text.