Jack Smith’s Trump classified documents probe is still an “ongoing investigation”

| 9:09 am EDT June 18, 2023
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Even now that the full text of Jack Smith’s criminal indictment of Donald Trump has been publicly unsealed, the document still only represents a (rather comprehensive) summary of the case. It’s not intended to be an exhaustive list of every last piece of evidence and testimony that the prosecution intends to use at trial. Our best hope of learning more about the case before the trial is in the form of the court filings that Smith will have to continue making. These filings can be routine, but they can still give things away.

For instance, in Smith’s latest filing he’s urging the courts to take measures to protect the not yet unveiled evidence in the case. Why? Smith says that there are “ongoing investigations” in his Trump classified documents probe. This sound vague but it could end up being quite a big deal.

Based on publicly reported subpoenas and such we already know that Jack Smith still has ongoing criminal probes into Donald Trump for January 6th, wire fraud, and other financial matters. But in this filing Smith is saying that he has ongoing investigations in the Trump classified documents probe. He’s already indicted Trump, so what else is there left to do?

This points to two possibilities. One is that Jack Smith is still seeking to bring additional criminal charges against Donald Trump in the classified documents probe. Such charges could even come in a different federal court district, such as Washington DC or New Jersey. The other possibility is that Smith intends to indict others for their involvement in Trump’s classified documents plot. You get the sense that this probe could just keep going and going, even beyond Trump’s initial trial in Miami.

Federal criminal probes have a tendency to keep spiraling outward from the original criminal plot, as one phase of the investigation uncovers related or sometimes even unrelated additional criminality. It’s very much starting to feel like we’ll end up looking back on Jack Smith’s current charges against Trump as merely phase one of this whole thing.