Left: Former President Donald Trump arrives at the courtroom for his civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura). Right: Attorney General Merrick Garland delivers a statement at the Department of Justice in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Former President Donald Trump has doubled down on claims that his Florida-based prosecution is part of a conspiracy that encompasses the federal government and media organizations.
In a motion to compel filed last week, Trump’s lawyers accused special prosecutor Jack Smith of hiding evidence in the case, in which Trump is accused of improperly storing documents relating to his time in office at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
Smith filed an opposition the following day, and on Monday, Trump fired back, accusing Smith of wrongfully contributing to public interest in the case.
“The Special Counsel’s Office chose to bring this case and has taken unprecedented steps to fuel biased press coverage and public interest in the proceedings in order to interfere with President Trump’s leading campaign for the presidency,” the motion says.
Attorney General Merrick Garland is also in on the conspiracy, according to Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Christopher Kise.
Among the “unprecedented steps” are what Trump’s attorneys describe as “conspicuously timed and tellingly defensive public statements by the Attorney General, released by CNN on January 19, 2024, in which he inappropriately sought to place DOJ’s imprimatur behind the Office’s untenable demand for a ‘speedy trial’ in this case and on the lawless charges filed in the District of Columbia.”
Trump is facing indictment in the nation’s capital for allegedly trying to subvert President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election.
The filing also accuses the special prosecutor of failing to show why such information needed to be sealed.
“[T]he Office made no effort to substantiate its vague claims concerning ‘witness safety’ and ‘national security’ as they relate to the requested redactions,” the motion says. “Many of the ‘potential witnesses’ referenced in President Trump’s motions to compel have been disclosed in public reports relating to the case, in some instances based on apparent leaks by prosecutors, and in the FOIA releases discussed in President Trump’s motions, which reveal some of the witnesses’ government email addresses.”
On Thursday, Smith had filed an opposition to Trump’s motion, pushing back on the accusation of hiding evidence and taking a dig at the truthfulness of Trump’s motion.
“The Government supports full transparency of the record consistent with witness safety, national security, and the court’s protective order, in part because that transparency will expose the defendants’ distortions of the factual and legal landscape in their motions to compel,” Smith wrote in the Jan. 18 filing.
Smith urged U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, to keep sensitive information out of the public eye.
“[O]ut of concern for witness safety and the reasons explained below, the Government opposes the Motion for Temporary Leave to File Redacted Brief — in effect a motion to disclose Discovery Material subject to the Court’s protective order — to the limited extent that the motions to compel or their exhibits identify any prospective Government witness, constitute Jencks Act material for the same, or contain certain additional discrete sensitive information specified below,” Smith’s opposition says.
Read Trump’s reply to Smith’s opposition here.
