Trump says DOJ violated its own election rules. Lawyers disagree.

Legal experts agreed. They said in interviews that such a filing is fair game since Smith’s filing is complying with court orders and deadlines. The Justice Department’s so-called “60-day rule” or “90-day rule” — which is not binding law, and which different officials interpret in different ways — calls on prosecutors to try to refrain from taking public steps in politically related cases, such as executing a search warrant on the eve of an election.

Justice Department officials have argued that once a case is in front of a judge, they must follow the court’s schedule — even if that schedule collides with a presidential election. The justices also have stressed that the lower courts should resolve immunity-related questions as soon as possible.

“What the Justice Department and the judge did is they followed the rules around criminal proceedings,” said David M. Driesen, a law professor at Syracuse University. “They followed the law, which is not to protect Trump or his political candidacy.”