Jack Smith strikes back
Democracy Docket’s Marc Elias believes the classified documents case is the one that will take Donald Trump down. That case does have the strongest evidence-and the worst judge. The saving grace is the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, which has shown before that it has no qualms about shooting Cannon down. Cannon is a Trump appointee who has no shame in showing her favoritism toward him, but there’s only so far she can take that. Favoritism is not the law. Unlike Trump’s efforts to overturn the election, this case contains evidence that cannot be contradicted by what Trump thought.
Trump knew full well that the documents he took belong to the U.S. government. He took them, he bragged about having them, he showed them to some people, and when the government came looking for them, he tried to conceal them. They were not his documents to take or keep, and he knew that, or he wouldn’t have tried to hide them. Visiting MSNBC’s “the Weekend,” Mark Elias outlined why this case is so strong: “It is literally about a former president of the United States stealing highly classified sensitive documents from the United States government, treating them cavalierly, showing them to people, storing them willy-nilly.” Jack Smith is certainly treating the case with the importance it deserves, which hopefully includes sending the FBI back into Mar-a-Lago to search a locked closet and a “hidden room,” both of which have been repeatedly mentioned by media outlets. In the interim, however, Smith continues to beat down Trump’s ridiculous defenses.
According to Newsweek, Trump’s latest claim is that because he had “special clearance,” he was allowed to take documents from the White House. No such thing exists. This “special clearance” was allegedly bestowed on Trump by the Department of Energy. This may be one of Trump’s most ridiculous lies to date. The lie was contained in his attorneys’ motion to compel discovery from Jack Smith’s team, as if they’d already read the millions of pages that had been given to them. This is just another delay tactic. They also requested that Smith’s team search two databases to “prove” Trump’s lie, but Smith had already searched and turned over the results to Trump’s team, which showed absolutely nothing. They also asked about yet another type of clearance, which Smith’s team pointed out ended with Trump’s presidency. Finally, they used Trump’s tired old lie that the investigation was politically motivated, to which Smith’s team responded: “To be clear, the defendant’s requests are predicated on a false narrative. The investigation and prosecution of this case have been appropriately driven by the facts and the law, not by any form of political bias.”
Political leanings have no bearing when evidence has stacked up as high as it has against Donald Trump’s unauthorized removal of government documents, especially those that require a security clearance. Trump had no right to those documents, and he knew it, or he wouldn’t have tried to conceal them. Most are just ready for these cases to move forward so that, instead of running for office, Trump will be running away from his confinement.
Shirley is a former entertainment writer and has worked in the legal field for over 25 years