Legal AF by MeidasTouch - FED UP Jack Smith DOESN’T GIVE AN INCH to Trump’s Efforts

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on Special Counsel Jack Smith refusal to let Trump get away with his efforts to reveal the names of government witnesses and witness interviews. Upgrade your sleep with Miracle Made! Go to https://TryMiracle.com/LEGALAF and use the code LEGALAF to claim your FREE 3 PIECE TOWEL SET and SAVE over 40% OFF. Visit https://meidastouch.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown Lights On with Jessica Denson: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/lights-on-with-jessica-denson On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Once again, Special Counsel Jack Smith has to go to Federal Judge Eileen Cannon and explain to her the concept of gray mailing, a form of black mailing whereby a criminal defendant tries to expose national security secrets and information to try to harm the country and to try to extort the government to drop charges against the criminal defendant and in Donald Trump and his co-defendants, they're engaging in paradigmatic forms of graymailing exactly what SEPA, the Classified Information Procedures Act, and exactly what protective orders generally were meant to protect against. And over and over again, what Donald Trump and his co-defendants try to do. It feels like deja vu because they do this each and every week.

You'll probably recall my hot takes from last week about this. The same thing, Trump and his code defendants in the Mar-a-Lago document case for the willful retention of national defense information, which is currently before Judge Eileen Cannon. What they try to do is take the discovery that they get pursuant to the protective order, then they try to attach it to public filings,

to publish it on the public docket, and then try to get Judge Eileen Cannon to co-sign it to release this information in public. Now, if this sounds like, hey, Ben, didn't they do this already? They did do this already in Special Counsel Jack Smith at the end of last week on February 8th and then February 9th, we got an order from Judge Eileen Cannon requesting additional briefing. On February 8th, you had special counsel Jack Smith file a motion for reconsideration after

a few days earlier, Judge Eileen Cannon granted a request by Donald Trump and his co-defendants to publish on the public docket the identities of dozens of government witnesses, something that's referred to as Jank's material, which is the government witness statements, FBI codenames, and other stuff that should never make its way on the public docket before there is a trial taking place, or if ever finding its way on the public docket before there is a trial taking place or if ever finding its way on the public docket. Remember back then, back then, it sounds like years ago, last week when special counsel Jack Smith filed his motion for reconsideration, he really did it on two grounds.

Ground number one, telling Judge Eileen Cannon, look, you're applying the wrong legal standard. You claim that the government had to show that there was a compelling need to keep these names secret or redacted. Not necessarily secret. I mean, Trump knows these names. They're part of the discovery rather, but there needs to be a compelling government interest

that is kind of narrowly described or circumscribed in order to keep them not on the public record or out of the public view to keep it under seal. That's not the standard. There just has to be a good cause showing by the government that this information should remain under seal like government witness lists and the names of government informants and FBI code names and things like this. But even Judge Eileen Cannon, if you applied a compelling government interest standard for keeping this information sealed, even though that's not the standard, well, there is one. You're going to kill all these witnesses. You're going to get them hurt or killed. There are threats directed at these witnesses. You're going to kill all these witnesses. You're going to get them hurt or killed.

There are threats directed at these witnesses. You're going to create manifest injustice, Judge. There's manifest injustice, Judge Kahnem, if you release these names of government witnesses and government reports and other inculpatory information and FBI code names to the public. So that all happened last week. Judge Eileen Cannon then set like an unnecessarily long briefing schedule where next week, Donald Trump has to respond to the motion for reconsideration and we'll see what they do there.

But in the meantime, Donald Trump and his code defendants on February 15th, they brought basically the same type of motion to disclose this same information in yet another motion in their reply to a motion to compel Trump and the co-defendants are doing the same tactics. They're taking confidential discovery, which Trump and the co-defendants get as part of the discovery obligations, but they're turned over by special counsel Jack Smith, pursuant to the protective order that Judge Eileen Cannon signed off on. So Trump and his co-defendants take that, and then they try to attach it to filings, and they try to file it on the public docket.

And special counsel, Jack Smith, objects and says, that's gray mail. That's quintessential gray mail. That's stuff that shouldn't be out there at all. And this is exactly what special counsel, Jack Smith, had to go once again on Friday, just like last week, like on last Friday, this past Friday, Jack Smith does the same thing, saying, here is the government's response to defendants' motion for leave, to disclose discovery, or in the alternative, to file under seal. Again, it's Trump and the other co-defendants, Walte, Nauta, and Dale of Aira, but it's really

being led by Donald Trump, wanna publish all of this information that just shouldn't be on the public docket. That's confidential discovery material. Did you know that your temperature at night can have one of the greatest impacts on your sleep quality? If you wake up too hot or too cold, I highly recommend you check out Miracle Maid's bedsheets.

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and use the code legalaf to claim your free three-piece towel set and save over 40%. Again, that's trymiracle.com slash legalaf to treat yourself. Thank you Miracle Made for sponsoring this episode. says these categories are, he goes first, defendants seek to publicly disclose the entirety of the search warrant application for defendant Carlos Dale Laverge Gmail account. As represented to the government in the conferral process, there is a single paragraph of the search warrant application that is of interest to the defendants for the purpose of their reply brief.

The government suggested that defendants file the pertinent page of the search warrant affidavit with redactions to the paragraph and questions obscuring the name of the potential government witnesses instead. As was true with several of the exhibits they attached in support of their motion to compel when they did this a few weeks back, the defendants have gratuitously sought to publicize the entire search warrant application despite their asserted, extremely narrow evidentiary need for it. There is no reason to permit them to do so and thereby jeopardize the safety of the potential government witnesses. You see how special counsel Jack Smith approaches this surgically with a scalpel and special counsel Jack Smith says, look, you want it for this purpose fine. Redact the other portions

of what of the search warrant affidavit and then you can publish on the public docket the one section, but you gratuitously are trying. That's not really what you're doing. What you wanna do is you're claiming you want that, but then you wanna put all the names of the other government witnesses that are in this search warrant. You wanna put that on the public docket

because what you're trying to do is harass them and have them threaten. That's what's really up right here. That's what Special Counsel Jack Smith is telling Judge Eileen Cannon what's going on. Second, the defendants seek to quote, reference and quote, grand jury testimony for two potential government witnesses, an FBI special agent and a secret service agent. In their motion, they do not specify whether they intend to attach the entirety of those transcripts as public exhibits. In the conferral process, with respect to the grand jury transcript for the FBI agent, the defendant indicated

that they were interested in a single page, but that page contains almost no testimony from the witnesses, and instead largely a colloquy between prosecutors and a member of the grand jury. Those excerpts should remain subject to the protective order for the same reasons that they are protected by Rule 6e. With respect to the transcript for the Secret Service Agent in the Conferral Process, the defendants indicated five pages of testimony they were interested in. Those five pages include numerous references by name

to prospective government witnesses. They should remain under seal as grand jury material protected by rule 6C and also to protect witnesses whose names appear. In substance, these pages discuss an email chain that should itself also remain sealed for the reasons discussed next. And when special counsel Jack Smith saying here is like, what are you trying to do here?

Like, okay, we're looking at this grand jury testimony that has the names of these of these agents. Why is this needed? It just seems like you gratuitously want to publicize the name of the special agent. This is grand jury material. Rule 6e, in the words grand jury material, this stuff doesn't go public. You're just trying to get it public because what you really after right here is to impose threats on the FBI special agent and the secret service agent. You're going after them. That's what's really going on here. And third, the defendants intend to refer and to quote a US secret service email chain that they

identified during the conferral process. These emails are paradigmatic, janks act material for potential government witnesses. And as explained at length elsewhere, at this point, they should be kept from public view, not only to protect those witnesses from harassment and intimidation, but also to prevent exposing other potential witnesses to the information. And fourth and finally, defendants intend to refer to what they called a record produced by the US Secret Service, which includes a floor plan of Trump's residential area at Mar-a-Lago. But this is not just any record, it is a memorandum prepared by Secret Service personnel following a residential security survey of Mar-a-Lago in April 2021.

It is labeled law enforcement sensitive. For good reason, it contains details of the Secret Service Security Assessment of Mar-a-Lago vulnerabilities and requested upgrades. The floor plan to which defendants refer appears in a diagram on a single page of the 23-page document. The government proposed that defendant include only the page with the diagram and redact the narrative text below. For obvious reasons, any publication of this document

should be carefully tailored to avoid unnecessarily publicizing sensitive information about the survey and the court should deny defendants proposed wholesale unredacted publication of it. So again, special counsel, Jack Smith saying, look, we've gone to Trump's lawyers, we've told them you want to publish the floor plan, publish it. But what you're trying to do is you claim you want one thing, but you're trying to bring in the names, the identities, the surveys, the methods and sources and things like that. Because what you're trying to do is harm national security.

That's not why we, you know, this is turned over pursuant to a protective order. This is not how discovery is supposed to be handled at this stage. We're not a trial yet. Let's just follow what the rules are. And we want to make sure that we're not placing any of the secret service, any of the FBI agents, any of the government witnesses in harm's way. That's why there's a protective order in the first place. So again, Special Counsel Jack Smith is not giving any ground here.

And it also is placing Judge Eileen Cannon in a position where she needs to make a ruling. And if she makes the wrong ruling, Jack Smith has a number of ways to go to the 11th Circuit ultimately when she makes a ruling. We will see. I'm Ben Mycelis. This is the Midas Touch Network. Hit subscribe. We're on our way to 3 million subscribers. Thanks to your support and have a great one.