top of page

An interesting twist in the Trump Smith legal saga?

Ten months later, the judge finally sees documents related to the original indictment,

At issue is the fact that Trump was not indicted in Florida (where the supposed crime would have been committed) but rather was indicted in the D.C. Circuit court.

This means that judges hostile to Trump made certain ruling and a grand jury hostile to Trump got to decide if he would be charged. Only then did they move the case to the correct jurisdiction. Many people questioned the validity of a Grand Jury indictment from what appears to be the wrong jurisdiction. It looks like Grand Jury shopping because that was exactly what it was. If Smith could have gotten away with charging him in D.C. and holding the Trial there, he no doubt would have done it.


The problem for Smith now is that none of the original rulings made by the D.C. Courts are required to be followed by the Judge handling the case. Judge Cannon (more favorable to Trump) has authority to make her own determinations that might fly 180 degrees in the face of how the D.C. rulings were made. One the rulings at issue was the Attorney Client privilege that was ordered waved by the previous D.C. Judge.


Generally, these are only waved under grave obvious situations where the Attorney may be involved with the client in a criminal activity or has specific knowledge of "future" or "ongoing" criminal behavior. In other words, had Donald Trump confessed to his attorney that he had committed a crime, the attorney is barred from talking about it. If Donald Trump warned his attorney that he was going to commit a crime or was engaged in ongoing criminal activity that he was going to continue, then those conversations are not privileged.


Now if one were to concede that a President leaving office with classified documents is criminal (which would mean that Barack Obama and other Presidents are also criminals) then there may be a question. Was Obama committing a crime by taking the documents to a warehouse in Chicago or was he also committing an ongoing crime by simply continuing to have them there. In Trump's case, the question of privilege would go to whether or not attorneys for Trump would be obligated to turn over any information about any documents that were currently at Mar-a-Lago that they might have believed to be classified.


Either way, it seems like a slippery slope. Murder is crime. Covering up the murder by hiding a body and trying to get away with it is obstruction. Yet, you cannot demand an attorney turn over on their client because the client is trying to hide the fact that they committed the murder. While it might be unethical to some attorneys to defend someone that they know is guilty, they are not obligated to turn over information to authorities once they find out. In fact, doing so would make the evidence inadmissible due to attorney client privilege and likely get them disbarred. That is how seriously our justice system takes the attorney client privilege.


It seems likely that Judge Cannon will have to rule again on the admissibility of the information provided by Trump attorneys to the D.C. Grand Jury. If said information becomes inadmissible, that might be a death blow to the Smith case.


13 views

1 Comment


Unknown member
Mar 31

Smith is a cockroach. He needs to be completely stomped on and crushed to die.

Like
bottom of page