Former President Donald Trump's request to compel special counsel Jack Smith to release more findings is a “Hail Mary” attempt to delay and thwart the process in the election interference case, a legal expert said.

Kimberly Atkins Stohr, a former lawyer turned legal analyst, discussed Trump's lawyers' recent demand that federal prosecutors turn over more evidence that Smith's team will use in the 2020 election interference case.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan largely denied the request on Oct. 16, saying that much of what she requested was irrelevant to the case about the events leading up to the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 be. This includes information about security at the Capitol before the insurrection, as well as information about suspected “undercover agents and individuals acting at the direction of official authorities” at the Capitol that day.

Talk about the #SistersInLaw In a podcast hosted by former Watergate prosecutor Jill Wine-Banks, Stohr said Trump's legal team was trying to delay the trial of the case rather than actually obtaining all the discovery it sought.

“It was a Hail Mary that had no catcher on the other side, like it was just an attempt to delay it or distort it and it failed,” Stohr said.

Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance also said on the podcast that Trump had the right to demand that Smith produce the evidence to support his legal defense, but that he intentionally asked for more than was necessary.

“There is a vast universe of evidence that the government routinely turns over to defendants in every case,” Vance said. “But of course, Trump being Trump, he wanted to go on a big fishing expedition to gather information that just wasn’t relevant.”

Newsweek Trump's legal team emailed for comment.

Trump has long been accused of using delaying tactics to delay the start of his 2020 election interference trial, in which he pleaded not guilty to four counts.

It is unclear whether the election interference case will ever go to trial, as the Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in July that presidents are entitled to at least some immunity from prosecution for official acts committed while in office.

If the federal case is not dismissed, it is all but certain that a trial will not take place before the end of the year. If Trump wins the election in November, he could order the Justice Department to end the federal investigation once he takes office in January 2025.

Chutkan ordered Smith's team to search and turn over materials that a former director of national intelligence had reviewed before being questioned by prosecutors, as well as records of Trump's meetings with former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley, days before the January 6 attack.

Chutkan directed Smith's team to seek out and provide to the former president's lawyers any Justice Department information related to a separate investigation into former Vice President Mike Pence's handling of classified documents.

Pence, whose relationship with Trump collapsed in the wake of the Capitol riots, was not charged by the DOJ after sensitive materials were found at his Indiana home in January 2023.

Trump's lawyers argued that the potential criminal charges Pence faced gave him “an incentive to curry favor with authorities” by providing information in the Jan. 6 case.

“The defendant is correct that information suggesting a potential witness's motivations for incriminating him could be significant,” Chutkan wrote.