Special Counsel Jack Smith said Monday in federal court in Florida that the government did not violate former President Donald Trump’s due process rights in its improper handling of documents discovered at Mar Ago.
As Breitbart News and other outlets reported in May, Smith Admitted Some evidence was not kept in the order it was presented to the court, leading Republicans to accuse Smith of manipulating the evidence.
His new FilingSmith argues:
Given Trump’s haphazard storage of the boxes, Trump now argues that the precise order in which the items in the boxes left the White House is critical to his defense and, further, that the FBI agents who executed the search warrant in August 2022 should have known about it. However, neither the law nor the facts provide any basis for a court to find malice or destruction of evidence in the unsurprising reality that the order of the items may have changed since then. Instead, given the disorganized state of the boxes and the sheer volume of classified documents in Trump’s possession, the FBI agents who conducted the search conducted their search professionally, thoroughly, and carefully under difficult circumstances.
Importantly, at every stage, agents maintained the integrity of each container in which evidence was found – box-to-box integrity.
The Department of Justice has already Hospitalized Some of the items shown in the photographs released in the documents were actually props and not original items.
By Julie Kelly I have written May (emphasis in original):
[D]The defendant’s lawyer And the special counsel admits“After the defense’s review of the actual boxes and documents provided in the disclosures, the defense has learned that the cross-references provided by the Office of Special Counsel do not contain accurate information,” lawyers for Trump co-defendant Waltin Nauta wrote in a May 1 motion.
The allegations forced the special counsel to admit error: “In many, but not all cases, the FBI was able to determine which documents marked as classified corresponded to particular placeholder sheets,” Blatt wrote.
In other words, FBI agents may have been so intent on concocting a fake photo using the cover of an official classified document that they failed to accurately match the false cover to the appropriate document — a mistake that could jeopardize the case, especially if the document in question is one of the 34 records that form the basis of the espionage charges against Trump.
Smith argued in Monday’s filing that the 11th Circuit has no precedent for holding that a defendant’s due process rights have been violated “because of the government’s loss or destruction of evidence.”
He added:[N]Neither the law nor the facts provide any basis for the Court to find malice or destruction of evidence in the not surprising reality that the order of some items may have since been changed.”
Judge Eileen Cannon, who is presiding over the case, has come under fierce attack from left-wing activists outraged that she has heard defense motions about the issue and the constitutionality of Smith’s appointment, effectively postponing the trial until after Election Day.
Joel B. Pollack is executive editor of Breitbart News. Breitbart News Sunday The show airs Sunday nights from 7 to 10 p.m. (4 to 7 p.m. ET) on SiriusXM Patriot. He is the author of his recently published e-book,Trumpian virtue: The lessons and legacy of Donald Trump’s presidency” is available on Audible. He is also the author of an e-book. Not Free or Fair: The 2020 US Presidential ElectionHe is the recipient of the Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship in 2018. Follow him on Twitter. Joel Pollack.
