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

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

Introduction: January 6th will not die in silence

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.

The structure of Smith v. Trump: who is suing whom

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 Proud Boys in judicial crosshairs

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.

The dilatory strategy: a documented mode of operation

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.

January 6th in American collective memory

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.

The immunity argument: anatomy of an appeal

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.

Implications for other January 6th-related proceedings

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.

The role of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law

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.

Trump and the federal courts: a partial mid-term balance sheet

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.

The Proud Boys and right-wing extremism: a persistent threat

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.

Civil rights in the balance: what this case represents

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.

International stakes: when American democracy falters

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.

What the resumption of discovery can concretely produce

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.

Outlook: where will this case stand in six months?

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.

Conclusion: justice, a fight without a finish line

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.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Columnist's transparency note

Who I am and what I stand for

I am a columnist, not a jurist. I have followed American judicial proceedings for several years with particular attention to constitutional questions and civil rights. My position is clear: I believe no one should be above the law, and I regard the events of January 6, 2021 as a serious attack on American democracy. This editorial bias is known, declared, and informs my reading of this case.

What I do not know and my method

I do not have access to the confidential documents in this case. I am not present in the courtrooms. My analysis rests on public sources — published court decisions, statements by civil rights organizations, legal analyses. I cannot predict the outcome of ongoing proceedings. Where the facts are uncertain, I say so. I do not manufacture testimony or unverified quotes.

Sources

Primary sources

Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights — Statement on the discovery order in Smith v. Trump — June 2026

Lawfare Media — The trials of the Trump administration — June 22, 2026

Joyce Vance — Boasberg contempt proceedings — June 2026

Secondary sources

Bloomberg — Trump wins delay in January 6 civil suits during immunity bid — June 4, 2026

Washington Times — Trump demands New York civil and criminal cases dismissed — June 2, 2026

Colorado Politics — District court judges facing repeated slap-downs by appeals courts — June 22, 2026