Jack Smith is an raging psychopath!

Demands that he is entitled to withhold evidence and that he has given Donald Trump all the discovery he is entitled to.

I didn't go to law school, but like most people, I have a basic understanding of discovery in a criminal trial. Under our current discovery laws prompted by this thing called the constitution, the defense is entitled to any and all names of witnesses, any physical evidence, any tests, any studies, anything tangible that would give the defense ample time to plan a defense. They are allowed to interview any potential witness and see any statements that these witnesses have provided to law enforcement or other sworn types of testimony. From what I understand, the only thing that a prosecutor is able to keep back is something called "work product" which is a fancy term for their strategy and planning. In other words, the defense is entitled to every piece of evidence, just not entitled to know how the prosecution might use it.

At issue is whether or not Jack Smith needs to reveal the names of all of his witnesses. Some of these names have been turned over to the defense but hidden from public view, while others apparently hidden from both the defense and the public. The argument from Smith is that revealing these witnesses could make them a target and he argues that turning information over to Trump is as good as making it public in the more sensitive cases. So for the "safety" of certain witnesses, he wants to withhold their names from everyone involved. You know, because this case is different because of the bad orange man. Normal rules cannot apply.

On top of the safety issue, Smith is also arguing that turning over this evidence could affect the testimony of other witnesses and potentially taint the potential jury pool. Obviously if all of these hidden witnesses and their statements are working in favor of the prosecution, then this testimony affecting other witnesses and tainting the jury pool would work in the prosecution's favor. It would stand to reason that the witness testimony and evidence he is withholding is what is considered exculpatory and hiding that sort of evidence is akin to prosecutorial misconduct that Jack Smith has been found guilty of in the past.

There is apparently some issue with how Jack Smith has been handling some of the classified documents, and rumors are there may be some chain of custody issues. Although details on that are a bit more murky. Either way, wherever Jack Smith goes, controversy and allegations of misconduct seem to follow.

At the end of the day, Smith is trying to build a hard to win case with very little tangible evidence. He seems to have very little self control when it comes to the sort of tactics that have gotten him in trouble in the past. Make no mistake, his rogue behavior and longstanding reputation for prosecutorial misconduct was considered a feature and not a bug by Garland and Biden. This is what they were expecting and hoping for. But this is not a judge that appears to be letting Smith get away with his normal shenanigans.