'Potentially case-blowing mistake': Jack Smith deception exposed
A true courtroom stunner came just days ago when Jack Smith, prosecuting President Trump for having government documents from his presidency in his home, admitted his team lied to the public and the court in the case.
Regarding the evidence.
Trump turned blunt, calling for Smith to be arrested over his admission, in a court filing, that he lied to the court about the documents seized from Trump's Mar-a-Lago home.
“ARREST DERANGED JACK SMITH. HE IS A CRIMINAL!” Trump said in a Truth Social post this weekend.
The issue is that in a court filing, prosecutors admitted they lied to the court, confessing that the FBI messed with the boxes containing those materials, and now not even Smith can be sure of the order or placement of the documents, which could be a critical factor in the case.
Now a Declassified report from famed investigative journalist Julie Kelly notes that the situation is "potentially case-killing."
FBI photo of documents seized in the raid of former President Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate.
She explained, "New court filings in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s espionage and obstruction case against Trump and two co-defendants conclusively demonstrate that the government used the cover sheets to deceive the public as well as the court. The photo was a stunt, and one that adds more fuel to this dumpster-fire case."
She noted Jay Bratt, who is assigned to Smith's team, earlier claimed: "[Thirteen] boxes or containers contained documents with classification markings, and in all, over one hundred unique documents with classification markings…were seized. Certain of the documents had colored cover sheets indicating their classification status."
The FBI staged a photograph of documents, and released it to the public to create public interest in the case.
But Kelly continued, "The DOJ’s clever wordsmithing, however, did not accurately describe the origin of the cover sheets. In what must be considered not only an act of doctoring evidence but willfully misleading the American people into believing the former president is a criminal and threat to national security, agents involved in the raid attached the cover sheets to at least seven files to stage the photo."
She explained, "Classified cover sheets were not 'recovered' in the container, contrary to Bratt’s declaration to the court. In fact, after being busted recently by defense attorneys for mishandling evidence in the case, Bratt had to fess up about how the cover sheets actually ended up on the documents."
She said his latest explanation is: "[If] the investigative team found a document with classification markings, it removed the document, segregated it, and replaced it with a placeholder sheet. The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose."
Kelly noted that the FBI's use of those "cover sheets" just before they were used as placeholders.
"Agents apparently used them as props. FBI agents took it upon themselves to paperclip the sheets to documents—something evident given the uniform nature of how each cover sheet is clipped to each file in the photo—laid them on the floor, and snapped a picture for political posterity," she noted.
The immediate result was that Judge Aileen M. Cannon has further delayed the next steps in the case, meaning it might not even come to trial until after the November election, which polls show Trump is likely to win.
Kelly called the FBI's staged photograph the "the picture that launched a thousand pearl-clutching articles."
She suggested that the behavior of the investigators raises "many troubling questions … about the FBI's handling of the alleged incriminating documents."
"For example, who made the on-site determination as to the classification level appropriate for each document? Did agents have security clearance and expertise related to classification? Did the agents know whether the document had been declassified by Trump while still in office?"
And she noted that defense lawyers have pointed out Smith's office handed out inaccurate information about the evidence.
And Bratt conceded that was correct, confessing the FBI has not been able to determine which document "with classification markings" goes with which placeholder.
"This is a potentially case-blowing mistake, particularly if the document in question is one of the 34 records that represents the basis of espionage charges against Trump," Kelly charged.
Bratt also had confirmed to the judge that the boxes of documents are "in their original, intact form as seized," citing only that classified docs were replaced with placeholders.
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