Jack Smith Finds Multiple Witnesses to Speak Out Against Donald Trump
Source: Newsweek
Published Apr 03, 2024 at 6:51 AM EDT | Updated Apr 03, 2024 at 7:59 AM EDT
Former White House officials disagreed with Donald Trump's explanation of how he came to acquire thousands of pages of presidential records, the latest filing by Special Counsel Jack Smith said. Those officials include a former national security adviser and former White House attorneys and chiefs of staff—none of whom said they had any recollection of Trump designating presidential records as personal.
Trump's claim that he designated presidential files as personal before leaving the White House is a fundamental part of his defense in the classified documents case he faces in Florida.
Smith wrote in the filing: "During its exhaustive investigation, the Government interviewed Trump's own PRA [Presidential Records Act] representatives and numerous high-ranking officials from the White House—Chiefs of Staff, White House Counsel and senior members of the White House Counsel's Office, a National Security Advisor, and senior members of National Security Council.
"Not a single one had heard Trump say that he was designating records as personal or that, at the time he caused the transfer of boxes to Mar-a-Lago, he believed that his removal of records amounted to designating them as personal under the PRA. To the contrary, every witness who was asked this question had never heard such a thing."
Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/trump-presidential-records-aileen-cannon-jack-smith-white-house-interviews-1886329
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