Jack Smith’s Team Ignored Attorney-Client And Speech Or Debate Privileges To Get Trump
Margot Cleveland Visit on Twitter@ProfMJCleveland
When Smith appears before the Senate Judiciary Committee, he should be pushed to explain why he failed to ensure his team adopted and applied proper filter protocols
“I ignored the written description of filtering the other night,” Molly Gaston messaged her fellow federal prosecutor, J.P. Cooney, in the early days of the post-2020 election targeting of President Donald Trump, documents obtained exclusively by The Federalist reveal. “Me too,” Cooney replied, showing that two of the attorneys whom Jack Smith would later choose to lead the special counsel team disregarded rules when judged “not tenable.” And additional documents whistleblowers provided Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, confirm the special counsel office ignored the protocol established to protect privileged documents.
Monday afternoon, in advance of Jack Smith’s Tuesday testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee, The Federalist is publishing a cache of documents it obtained exclusively from Grassley, in advance of their public release. These new documents provide further evidence that the Biden Administration and Special Counsel Jack Smith weaponized the Justice Department.
The first incriminating document consists of what a representative from Grassley’s office confirmed included text exchanges between two prosecutors in the D.C. U.S. attorney’s office from February of 2021. Those communications came soon after Biden’s inauguration and while Tim Thibault remained a key player pushing for an investigation into Trump.
Cooney opened the relevant exchange by asking Gaston “how confusing/bad was the filter guidance? I’m sitting in another call, but am getting pinged that it is a bit of a cluster.”
The referenced “filter guidance” concerned the DOJ’s directions to prosecutors and agents for the handling of documents being reviewed as part of their investigation, where the materials included — or potentially included — privileged materials, such as communications with an attorney. To properly protect privileged communications, when documents may include privileged material, the DOJ requires those documents to be sequestered from the investigative and prosecuting team, with a “filter” or “taint” team reviewing the documents to redact or withhold any protected communications from prosecutors.
The documents provided The Federalist indicate that during the initial stages of the Arctic Frost investigation, the FBI and prosecutors operating out of the D.C. office did not use a taint team, and instead had “filter guidance” telling them how to handle privileged communications. According to Gaston, the guidance “basically said, if you come across potentially privileged material (without defining), stop and freeze.”