Jack Smith Admits to Misleading Judge; Case Put on Indefinite Hold

You might remember how shortly after President Trump's home in Mar-a-Lago was raided by the FBI, this photo right here was released to the public showing a variety of documents strewn out on the floor for the world to see. Looking at it, most people were shocked that these documents were clearly marked right there on the front covers as being either secret or top secret. In fact, news outlets ran that photo publishing articles like this one here titled, quote, Photos show boxes of classified documents all over Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate. However, the only problem is that according to newly released court documents, it appears that the covers of those documents in those photos were actually put there by the feds who raided Mar-a-Lago. They were not there previously. But that's only part of the revelations that came out in these documents. Let me give you a brief bit of backstory here. Back in the fall of 2022, Judge Eileen Canna, who is the judge overseeing the classified documents case, she ordered the prosecutors to digitally scan all the documents that they took from Trump in order to check whether or not they wound up seizing any records that were legally privileged. And so roughly two years ago, Jack Smith and a team of prosecutors, they made digital scans of all the records in all the 33 boxes that they took from Mar-a-Lago. They then removed the classified documents from those boxes, put instead placeholders for where they used to be, and then they gave those boxes back to Trump's legal team so they can build a defense. And it's worth noting that during a court hearing less than a month ago, the prosecutors told Judge Eileen Canna that everything in the boxes was exactly as they found it. Quote, when Judge Canna asked during the hearing whether the boxes were in their original intact form as seized, one of the prosecutors responded by saying they are, with one exception, and that is that the classified documents have been removed and placeholders have been put in the documents. However, you fast forward to today and Trump's legal team came across something strange. Trump's defense lawyers were having trouble figuring out precisely where particular documents had come from within these 33 different boxes. Things were just not making sense to them because the digital scans were not lining up with what they were actually seeing in the boxes themselves. And as such, Trump's legal team, they asked for a short delay in the case. Although to be frank, Trump's legal team's entire strategy is to delay the case past the election, and so this might have just been a pretext to do so. But regardless, that's what happened. The boxes were not lining up with the digital scans, and so Trump's legal team requested a short delay. And interestingly, in a court filing as a response submitted last Friday, Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors admitted that despite saying what they previously said, the documents were jumbled up, meaning that the order was not the same. Here's specifically what they wrote in a court filing again published last Friday. Quote, since the boxes were seized and stored, appropriate personnel have had access to the boxes for several reasons, including to comply with orders issued by this court in the civil proceedings noted above for investigative purposes and to facilitate the defendant's review of the boxes. There are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans. And then interestingly, in a footnote in their filing at the bottom, they admitted that federal prosecutors effectively misled the court by saying earlier that the evidence was exactly the same as when it was Here's what they wrote in that little footnote. Quote, the government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what the government council previously understood and represented to the court. Now, Jack Smith and his team of prosecutors were not able to confirm exactly why the order of papers was changed, but they did offer up a theory. Quote, the boxes contain items smaller than standard papers, such as index cards, books, and stationery, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full. And as such, they said that it wasn't really a big deal because the items in the box are the same, just the order was jumbled. Also, as a side note, in the most recent filing, the prosecutors also revealed to the court this little tidbit. Quote, Jack Smith's team revealed in the filing that FBI agents carried printed classified cover sheets during the August 8th, 2022 search of Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate and used them to replace any classified documents they discovered in cardboard bankers boxes that littered the former president's residence. They wrote in their filing that 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 documents seized. Meaning, as a practical matter, that all those famous photos plastered on every single news channel wasn't actually how the feds found those documents. Those cover sheets with the big words secret or top secret were added by the feds themselves. And as such, President Trump used this admission of the prosecutors in their legal filing to call for the entire case to be dismissed. Here's part of what he wrote on Truth Social. Quote, 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, that he and his team committed blatant evidence tampering by mishandling the very boxes they used as a pretext to bring this fake case. And wouldn't you know it, just yesterday, Judge Eileen Cannon went ahead and she placed the whole case on an indefinite hold. She did not dismiss the case, but it's placed on an indefinite hold. Specifically, on Tuesday, Judge Cannon postponed a filing deadline for Trump's legal team, but then the very next day on Wednesday, she postponed the entire case indefinitely. Here's specifically what she wrote as a part of her order again on Wednesday. Quote, the court also determines that finalization of a trial date at this juncture before the resolution of the myriad and interconnected pretrial and classified information procedures act issues remaining and forthcoming would be impudent and inconsistent with the court's duty to fully and fairly consider the various pending pretrial motions before the court. The court therefore vacates the current May 20th, 2024 trial date and associated calendar call to be reset by separate order following resolution of the matters before the court consistent with the defendant's right to due process and the public's interest in the fair and efficient administration of justice. Meaning that as a practical matter, the case has been postponed until further notice. And of course, the underlying issue of play here is that if the case is postponed beyond the 2024 election, and if Trump happens to win that election, then the whole thing will be postponed by another four years since Trump cannot be tried while serving as the sitting president. For your reference, in case you're not aware, the election is 178 days away. And so we'll just have to wait and see whether these myriad of pretrial motions that Judge Cannon mentioned can be resolved before then. Until then, if you'd like to go deeper into the most recent developments in this classified documents case, I'll throw the links to all my research notes. You'll be able to find them down in the description box below if you're the type of person that likes to dig into the weeds. 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