Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s team on Thursday responded to fat former President Trump’s bid for an indefinite continuance of his upcoming federal felony trial for stealing and hoarding classified documents, neatly demolishing each stupid argument. The highlights:

“Defendants Trump and Nauta claim unequivocally that they cannot receive a fair trial prior to the conclusion of the next presidential election, urge the Court to withdraw the current scheduling Order, and request that the Court not even consider a new trial date until some unspecified later time. There is no basis in law or fact for proceeding in such an indeterminate and open-ended fashion, and the Defendants provide none,” Smith’s team wrote in the opener.

“As for the impact of the Presidential Records Act on this prosecution, any argument that it mandates dismissal of the Indictment or forms a defense to the charges here borders on frivolous. The PRA is not a criminal statute, and in no way purports to address the retention of national security information. The Defendants are, of course, free to make whatever arguments they like for dismissal of the Indictment, and the Government will respond promptly. But they should not be permitted to gesture at a baseless legal argument, call it ‘novel,’ and then claim that the Court will require an indefinite continuance in order to resolve it,” they continue on page 9.

“Defendants’ claim that this Court could not select an impartial jury until after the presidential election does not justify further delay here. First and most importantly, there is no reason to credit the claim. Our jury system relies on the Court’s authority to craft a thorough and effective jury selection process, and on prospective jurors’ ability and willingness to decide cases based on the evidence presented to them, guided by legal instructions from the Court. To be sure, the Government readily acknowledges that jury selection here may merit additional protocols (such as a questionnaire) and may be more time-consuming than in other cases, but those are reasons to start the process sooner rather than later,” they write toward the end.