Jack Smith’s HUGE Mistake That Could Upend His Entire Case
Legal analyst believes Jack Smith has been caught fabricating details of his case against President Donald Trump, which if true could throw into question any chance he has of securing a conviction in his classified documents case
Fox News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett said on Monday that the Biden Justice Department special counsel “misled” Florida U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon when he detailed efforts to preserve evidence about the FBI’s raid of Mar-a-Lago in August of 2022. Smith admitted in a filing on Friday that some of the evidence registered in boxes taken from the property does not match up to itemizations given to Trump co-defendant Walt Nauta but brushed away concerns that the former Trump aide raised, calling the information he was provided “entirely accurate.”
However, it’s “no small matter” for Smith to concede that the government may not have kept evidence in the state in which it was seized, Jarrett said. “Prosecutors have a duty to preserve evidence, Larry, exactly as it is seized,” Jarrett told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, the Daily Caller reports. “Jack Smith’s special counsel admits now in court documents altering, manipulating evidence against Trump. The digital scan of documents doesn’t match the physical order in the boxes that were seized.”
“And Smith got caught,” Jarrett continued. “His excuse, ‘Well, your honor it is a complicated case, lots of documents,’ that is not an excuse. This is evidence tampering. It is destroying exculpatory evidence and even worse, Smith lied to the court and he was forced to admit it although he did so in a footnote, ‘Gee, I misled the judge.’ This is no small matter, Larry.”
In his filing, Smith hypothesizes about why evidence could have been shifted around in boxes since the raid.
“There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans,” the filing from Smith’s team said. “There are several possible explanations, including the above-described instances in which the boxes were accessed, as well as the size and shape of certain items in the boxes possibly leading to movement of items. For example, the boxes contain items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full.”
In a footnote, Smith noted the disclosure is “inconsistent” with what Judge Cannon was previously told by his team. In addition, the FBI categorized the boxes using blank sheets with notations after agents ran out of cover sheets.
“The investigative team used classified cover sheets for that purpose, until the FBI ran out because there were so many classified documents, at which point the team began using blank sheets with handwritten notes indicating the classification level of the document(s) seized,” Smith’s team said in the filing. “The investigative team seized any box that was found to contain documents with classification markings or presidential records.”
Investigative reporter Julie Kelly has previously written about the lack of cover sheets and the implications it could carry for the trial. “The cover sheets do not represent the format in which the records were found–an intentional misrepresentation in the court docket for special master lawsuit and by the media,” she posted to X on Saturday, including pictures of documents in their original state when found at Trump’s Florida compound.
Before I address the evidence-tampering filing posted by Special Counsel Jack Smith last night, let’s turn to the motion that forced Smith to admit what happened–one filed by Walt Nauta’s attorney on May 1.
Remember the photo of “classified docs” strewn on the floor with scary… pic.twitter.com/IOdHpRqAyu
— Julie Kelly 🇺🇸 (@julie_kelly2) May 4, 2024
Any complications about the evidence against Trump will boost the defense’s argument that his staff took boxes given to them by the U.S. General Services Administration and moved them in their original state. Any alterations could be part of a coordinated attempt by Smith, the Justice Department, the U.S. National Archives, and the Biden White House to prosecute Trump, Jarrett added
“The chronology of documents is vital to Trump’s defense. The staff boxed up exactly what they received from the GSA that was sent to Mar-a-Lago,” Jarrett said. “And we also know the National Archives coordinated with Joe Biden’s White House and the Biden DOJ on how to bring criminal charges against Donald Trump. So one can argue that Trump is the victim of a setup.”
In a previous Truth Social post, President Trump has railed against the special prosecutor for tampering with evidence.
“It has always been clear that the ‘Documents Case’ is nothing but an Election Interference Scam concocted by Crooked Joe Biden, Deranged Jack Smith, and their Hacks and Thugs,” Trump posted. “Now, Deranged Jack has admitted in a filing in front of Judge Cannon to what I have been saying happened since the Illegal RAID on my home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida – That he and his team committed blatant Evidence Tampering by mishandling the very Boxes they used as a pretext to bring this Fake Case.”
