Donald Trump’s attorneys have filed a “bombshell” motion to discover documents that would allegedly show political collusion between the Department of Justice and the Biden administration.
The legal attempt to uncover a potential cover-up between Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution team and the White House was reported on Tuesday.
“Trump’s attorneys tonight in classified docs case file bombshell motion for discovery—again insists Special Counsel Jack Smith is concealing evidence including voluminous records demonstrating collaboration btw Biden White House, NARA, DOJ, FBI, and intel agencies,” she reported.
Joined by attorneys representing his 2 co-defendants, Team Trump again asks for records related to Biden’s DOE attempting to retroactively remove Trump’s security clearance AFTER Smith’s indictment. pic.twitter.com/5et1iNheaY
— Julie Kelly ?? (@julie_kelly2) January 17, 2024
“Joined by attorneys representing his 2 co-defendants, Team Trump again asks for records related to Biden’s DOE attempting to retroactively remove Trump’s security clearance AFTER Smith’s indictment,” she added.
The Trump legal team’s filing state that the “FOIA releases, coupled with other evidence scattered throughout more than 1.2 million pages of discovery, reflect close participation by NARA and Biden administration components such as the White House Counsel’s Office, as well as senior officials at DOJ and FBI. These revelations are disturbing but not surprising.”
The National Archives has been under scrutiny for its disparate treatment of the Biden adn Trump classified documents cases. Furthermore, NARA appears to have misled the public by claiming that it merely handed the Trump case off to the FBI when it actually was coordinating with the FBI throughout its investigation.
A Just the News report reveals a “trove of internal NARA communications” that show that “the records administrators repeatedly interacted with the FBI’s investigation into Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents. This contradicts the claims from NARA it handed the investigation off to the FBI “after” discovering the classified information in Trump’s possession.”
“When NARA identified items marked as classified national security information within the 15 boxes, NARA referred this issue to the DOJ,” acting Archivist Debra Wall wrote Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) on Aug. 16, 2022. “Since that time, the DOJ has been exclusively responsible for all aspects of this investigation, and NARA has not been involved in the DOJ investigation or any searches that it has conducted.”
The National Archives subsequently told the House Intelligence Committee during a closed-door interview in March that “every administration since President Ronald Reagan has mishandled classified materials, including commingling classified and unclassified documents,” according to CNN.
In related news, the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability has “invited Archivist of the United States Colleen Shogan to participate in a public hearing to assess the National Archives interactions and coordination with the White House regarding requests for records from Joe Biden’s tenure as Vice President. ”
In the Georgia racketeering case, a Congressional subpoena of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ office was submitted, directed towards Willis’ alleged lover and special prosecutor Nathan Wade, over ostensible coordination with the White House over the “political prosecution” of Donald Trump.
“The Committee on the Judiciary continues to conduct oversight of politically motivated prosecutions by state and local officials,” the Judiciary committee stated. “Based on recent reports, we believe that you possess documents and information about the coordination of the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office (FCDAO) with other politically motivated investigations and prosecutions and the potential misuse of federal funds. Accordingly, we ask for your cooperation with our oversight.”
“On August 14, 2023, with your assistance, Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis indicted a former President of the United States and current declared candidate for that office. According to a recent court filing, you have been paid more than $650,000—at the rate of $250 per hour—to serve as an ‘Attorney Consultant’ and later a ‘Special Assistant District Attorney’ in the unprecedented investigation and prosecution of the former President and other former federal officials,” the statement added. “This filing also alleges that while receiving a substantial amount of money from Fulton County, you spent extravagantly on lavish vacations with your boss, Ms. Willis.”
“Although Ms. Willis has so far refused to cooperate with our oversight of the FCDAO’s coordination with other politically motivated prosecutions, invoices that you submitted for payment by the FCDAO, and made public as part of this court filing, highlight this collusion,” the statement continued. “This new information appears to substantiate our concerns that Ms. Willis’s politicized prosecution, including the decision to convene a special purpose grand jury, was aided by partisan Democrats in Washington, D.C. For example”:
- In April 2022, you billed $6,000 for 24 hours of ‘[t]eam meeting; Conf w/Jan 6; Research legal issues to prep intev’ from April 18 to 22.
- In May 2022, you billed $2,000 for eight hours of ‘travel to Athens; conf. with White House Counsel’ on May 23, 2022.
- In that same invoice, you billed another $2,000 for eight hours of ‘team meeting; Conf w/Jan 6; SPGJ witness prep’ on May 31, 2022.
- In September 2022, you billed $6,000 for 24 hours of ‘[w]itness [i]nterviews; conf call DC; team meeting’ from September 7 to 9.
- In November 2022, you billed $2,000 for eight hours of ‘Jan 6 meeting and Atty conf.’ on November 16.
- In that same invoice, you billed another $2,000 for eight hours of ‘[i]nterview with DC/White House’ on November 18.
“The FCDAO reportedly compensated you using a concoction of comingled funds, including monies confiscated or seized by the FCDAO and monies directed from Fulton County’s ‘general’ fund,” the statement continued. “The Committee has information that the FCDAO received approximately $14.6 million in grant funds from the Department of Justice between 2020 and 2023 and, given the enormous legal fees you have billed to the FCDAO, there are open questions about whether federal funds were used by the FCDAO to finance your prosecution. In fact, on one day—November 5, 2021—you billed taxpayers for 24 hours of legal work, attesting that you worked all day and night without break on a politically motivated prosecution.”
“A recent news report corroborates your coordination with partisan Democrats, explaining that you and FCDAO staff ‘quietly met’ with the partisan January 6 Committee, which allowed you to review information they had gathered,” the statement said. “Politico reported that the partisan January 6 Committee provided Ms. Willis’s prosecution a ‘boost’ as she prepared to convene a special grand jury and even ‘helped prosecutors prepare for interviews with key witnesses.’ The same article suggests that the partisan January 6 Committee provided you access to records it withheld from other law-enforcement entities and even other Members of Congress.”
A former Special Counsel is crying foul about the appearance of impropriety.
“But the nature of the cooperation between Willis and the Jan. 6 panel is unusual, according to Sol Wisenberg, a former prosecutor who worked on Ken Starr’s Clinton probe — another matter that overlapped with congressional investigations,” the report noted.
“To me, that’s a highly unusual level of specific cooperation,” Wisenberg said. “They’re using what’s supposed to be a congressional investigation in aid of a prosecution.”
If Trump’s legal team is successful and is able to obtain discovery of documents illustrating collusion between the Special Counsel’s office and the White House, it would be further evidence backing up the former president’s claims that the prosecutions are a form of “election interference.”
