As lawfare against former President Donald Trump continues, special counsel Jack Smith is facing backlash for his actions in Trump’s classified documents case.
In a filing posted Sunday, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon for the Southern District of Florida said, “The Court deems it necessary to express concern over the Special Counsel’s treatment of certain sealed materials in this case.” Smith, working as special counsel for the Department of Justice, is prosecuting Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents that he took to his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, after leaving office in January 2021.
Trump faces 40 felony counts in the case.
The aforementioned “concern” from Cannon — a Trump appointed judge — stemmed from Smith’s asking her to keep information from the public in order to protect the secrecy of the grand jury and protect witnesses in the case. She stated Smith ignored those issues at other points in the case.
Cannon’s filing said, “[C]ounsel explained that the Special Counsel took the position on unsealing in order to publicly and transparently refute defense allegations of prosecutorial misconduct raised in pretrial motions. Fair enough.”
She continued, “nowhere in that explanation is there any basis to conclude that the Special Counsel could not have defended the integrity of his Office while simultaneously preserving the witness-safety and Rule6(e) concerns he has repeatedly told the Court, and maintains to this day, are of serious consequence, and which the Court has endeavored with diligence to accommodate in its multiple Orders on sealing/redaction. The Court is disappointed in these developments.”
Cannon put her in filing that Smith had — during two separate filings — shown no objection to a full unsealing of docket entries.
Cannon said, “In light of that repeated representation, and in the absence of any defense objection, the Court unsealed those materials consistent with the general presumption in favor of public access.”
“The sealing and redaction rules should be applied consistently and fairly upon a sufficient factual and legal showing,” she concluded.
Let’s clarify that sequence of events.
Smith — in two filings — did not have a problem with unsealing documents, and the defense had no problem with it. Now Smith is reversing course and asking Cannon to keep information from the public.
Smith thought it was a good idea to let the public see what’s happening so that, as Cannon put it, the prosecution can, “refute defense allegations of prosecutorial misconduct raised in pretrial motions.” Now he appears to be going the other way.
One would not be remiss in finding this entire case and Smith’s actions to be a complete head scratcher. Further, Cannon can’t be blamed for visible frustration with Smith’s inconsistency.
The DOJ has been weaponized against Trump to throw a wrench in his re-election bid. Smith has been brought in to do just that, but he can’t seem to devise a winning strategy.
Lawfare against Trump doesn’t cease here as he is currently sitting through a trial in Manhattan where he faces 34 felony charges of falsifying business records by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Some may accuse Cannon of favoritism as a Trump appointee, but that contradicts her actions in rejecting his request to redact multiple witness statements from his motions. It doesn’t appear that anyone in their right mind would accuse the system of being biased for Trump.
What’s the endgame for Smith and Bragg?
Without a hint of hyperbole, it is to undermine the electoral process in November.
The DOJ, Bragg, Smith, and the entire mishmash of anti-Trump legal activists fear his re-election and do not feel confident that he can be stopped by the voter.
They must defeat him in the courtroom because there is little hope of beating him at the polls.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
