According to a Monday filing, US Department of Justice’s Special Counsel Jack Smith intends to use President Donald Trump’s extracted phone data as evidence in his Jan. 6 trial in Washington D.C. on March 4, the day before Super Tuesday.
As reported by Politico, “Special counsel Jack Smith has extracted data from the cell phone Donald Trump used while in the White House and plans to present evidence of his findings to a Washington, D.C. jury to demonstrate how Trump used the phone in the weeks during which he attempted to subvert the 2020 election.”
Data from the ex-president’s phone, Politico added, “could reveal day-to-day details of his final weeks in office, including his daily movements, his Twitter habits and any other aides who had access to his accounts and devices. The data, for example, could help show whether Trump personally approved or sent a fateful tweet attacking his vice president, Mike Pence, during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.”
According to the court filing, the government has submitted a notice of an expert witness who has retrieved the former president’s cell phone data and location data.
The Government expects that Expert 1 will testify about his/her use of ArcGIS (Geographic
Information Systems) software to create a map of the Google location history data produced in response to a search warrant. Specifically, Expert 1 plotted the location history data for Google accounts and devices associated with individuals who moved, on January 6, 2021, from an area at or near the Ellipse to an area encompassing the United States Capitol building. His/her testimony will describe and explain the resulting graphical representations of that data, and it will aid the jury in understanding the movements of individuals toward the Capitol area during and after the defendant’s speech at the Ellipse.
As mentioned before, the first altercation between Capitol Police occurred before the audience at Donald Trump’s rally could march to the Capitol building to “peacefully and patriotically” make their voices heard, as the president said.
Furthermore, Donald Trump wanted his backers to support the election challenges that were taking place in the Congress; there is nothing to support the assertion that he wanted a mindless riot to throw chaos into the election certification process to futilely attempt to cling to power. The official J6 narrative continues to be implausible, yet it is still propagated to this day.
Jack Smith is not only targeting Donald Trump’s communications from his time as commander-in-chief, while attempting to undercut his claims of executive immunity, however. He is also targeting millions of Trump supporters.
In late November, it was revealed that DOJ prosecutors collected a massive collection of data about the former president’s social media activity—including information on every account that liked, followed, or retweeted him.
An extensively redacted search warrant was revealed as a result of a judge’s ruling on November 17, which came after a consortium of media organizations filed an application in August for the warrant and other data to be made public.
Twitter appears to have provided the DOJ with vast volumes of material under compulsion.
Special Counsel Jack Smith sought, and appears to have gotten, information on all users Trump followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked, as well as all users who followed, unfollowed, muted, unmuted, blocked, or unblocked Trump.
Smith also requested that Twitter provide information on “all lists of Twitter users who have favorited or retweeted tweets posted by [Trump], as well as all tweets that include the username associated with the account (i.e., ‘mentions’ or ‘replies’).”
The DOJ’s request also wanted information on Trump’s geolocation, private messages, search history, and contact information.
The warrant’s release comes after Twitter objected to the search warrant as well as an accompanying gag order, claiming that the gag order violated the company’s First Amendment right to communicate with Trump and that Trump may have legal standing to use executive privilege to block the warrant.
Twitter’s challenge to the DOJ was eventually unsuccessful, with Obama-appointed District Judge Beryl Howell fining the firm $350,000 in February for failing to fulfill a deadline for complying with the order. All of Howell’s rulings were upheld by an appeals court.
Even more chilling, not only did Jack Smith seek to violate Donald Trump’s reasonable expectation of privacy in search for a crime, he wanted to do it in secret.
“Based on ex parte affidavits, the district court found probable cause to search the Twitter account for evidence of criminal offenses. Moreover, the district court found that there were ‘reasonable grounds to believe’ that disclosing the warrant to former President Trump ‘would seriously jeopardize the ongoing investigation’ by giving him ‘an opportunity to destroy evidence, change patterns of behavior, [or] notify confederates,’” the appeals court noted.
Legal analyst Julie Kelly commented on the latest developments.
Smith admitted in a motion a few days ago that the government could not retrieve deleted messages off numerous cell phones belonging to Secret Service agents and officials but he enlists an “expert” to determine when Trump had Twitter open on his cell?
WTAF country are we in?
— Julie Kelly ?? (@julie_kelly2) December 11, 2023
“Another filing by Jack Smith,” Kelly remarked. “He collected data off Trump’s cell phones including ‘images and websites visited’ and when Trump left his Twitter app open on January 6.”
“Smith is a sick individual who should immediately be defunded and investigated–‘deranged’ is too kind,” she added.
The X user Foia Fan made another observation about the filing.
So it looks like Jack Smith is planning to use cellphone location data to try to blame the J6 riot on Trump. Factually, it sounds like a big stretch. Politically, it may be effective for rallying Dems and frightening Indies. Which is the basic idea. pic.twitter.com/CUzMglQoXq
— FoiaFan?? (@15poundstogo) December 12, 2023
“So it looks like Jack Smith is planning to use cellphone location data to try to blame the J6 riot on Trump. Factually, it sounds like a big stretch. Politically, it may be effective for rallying Dems and frightening Indies. Which is the basic idea.”
“Look carefully at the last sentence. Jack Smith is interested in Trump’s tweets on J6. And perhaps his DMs, if any. Hmmm. And who is ‘Individual 1’???”
This may help Jack Smith in his investigation: After the 2020 election was certified, and the election challenges conveniently swept away due to the rioting, Trump sent out this message.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 8, 2021
In the message on January 7, Trump states that he would step down for Joe Biden to become the next President of the United States, his objections to the 2020 election aside.
Donald Trump was subsequently acquitted in the Senate for any misconduct that his opponents argued he committed during the election certification. This case should never have been brought. It is a blatant case of election interference.
And with any justice, the Supreme Court will not only address the heart of Jack Smith’s case, it will condemn him for violating the rights of the President of the United States.
