Special Counsel Jack Smith’s legal team has admitted that key evidence in Donald Trump’s classified documents criminal case has been tampered with.
In a legal filing on Friday, Smith’s team claimed that "appropriate personnel" had been given access to the boxes since they were seized but acknowledged that items within the boxes may no longer be in the correct chronological order:
Since the boxes were seized and stored, appropriate personnel have had access to the boxes for several reasons, including to comply with orders issued by this Court in the civil proceedings noted above, for investigative purposes, and to facilitate the defendants’ review of the boxes. The inventories and scans created during the civil proceedings were later produced in discovery in this criminal case. Because these inventories and scans were created close in time to the seizure of the documents, they are the best evidence available of the order the documents were in when seized.
That said, there are some boxes where the order of items within that box is not the same as in the associated scans. There are several possible explanations, including the above-described instances in which the boxes were accessed, as well as the size and shape of certain items in the boxes possibly leading to movement of items. For example, the boxes contain items smaller than standard paper such as index cards, books, and stationary, which shift easily when the boxes are carried, especially because many of the boxes are not full.
While the explanation may seem plausible, altering the order of documents represents a serious form of evidence tampering that could completely undermine the prosecution's case.
Perhaps even more extraordinary, the prosecution then admits that they misled the court by previously indicating that the evidence had been left untouched since its seizure last year.
"The Government acknowledges that this is inconsistent with what Government counsel previously understood and represented to the Court," the legal filing notes.
Such evidence tampering will only further undermine Smith's case against the former president, which most Americans realize is a blatant attempt by Joe Biden and the Department of Justice to derail Trump's chances of returning to the White House.
On Friday, it was also revealed that Smith’s top prosecutor, Jay Bratt, met with White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain back in September 2021, months before any classified documents were discovered at Mar-a-Lago.
Posting on his Truth Social platform, Trump called for Jack Smith's arrest, describing him as "deranged" and a "criminal."
He continued:
It has always been clear that the “Documents Case” is nothing but an Election Interference Scam concocted by Crooked Joe Biden, Deranged Jack Smith, and their Hacks and Thugs. Now, Deranged Jack has admitted in a filing in front of Judge Cannon to what I have been saying happened since the Illegal RAID on my home, Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida - That he and his team committed blatant Evidence Tampering by mishandling the very Boxes they used as a pretext to bring this Fake Case. These deeply Illegal actions by the Politicized “Persecutors” mandate that this whole Witch Hunt be DROPPED IMMEDIATELY. END THE “BOXES HOAXES.” MAGA2024!
The case continues.