Former DOJ official questions media leaks mentioned in Trump indictment

A former ranking Justice Department lawyer now says the Trump indictment could be fatally flawed by reason of prior leaks to sympathetic media outlets.

Media leaks too close to the pleadings

Jeffrey Clark, who once served as an Assistant Attorney General, mentioned the media leaks flaw on Twitter Friday. The Western Journal gives details. According to them, the controversy surrounds this report by CNN that in the summer of 2021, Trump “held onto a classified Pentagon document.” Evidently Trump’s use of words like “confidential” and “secret,” as CNN interprets it, belie his statement that he declassified everything.

Regardless of whether CNN’s interpretation is correct or incorrect, Clark, on Twitter, says the leak alone is grounds for dismissal.

CNN never disclosed their sources, and dropped few hints as to what the source might have been. But Clark compares the CNN story to paragraph a of Allegation 6, on page 3 of the indictment. That paragraph describes the Bedminster Conversation.

In CNAV’s earlier coverage, we took note that Paul Sperry already debunked that interpretation by reason of Jack Smith’s ignoring of two key words. (We also took note of the timeline which sets Allegation 4 of the indictment at nought.)

Says Clark: “the leaks that preceded the indictment are far too close to what is actually being pleaded by DOJ to be a coincidence.” Furthermore, Trump’s lawyers cannot be the source of the leaks. That leaves the Justice Department itself, and such leaks cannot be right or proper. Clark said a winning motion to dismiss could have its basis in “jury pool poisoning.”

Anti-American?

Clark denounced the leaks, and the process, as “fundamentally anti-American.”

Allegation 4 forms the basis for a claim that Trump has no legal right to any of these documents. But the timing of Trump’s departure from the White House, landing in Florida, and removal of documents from the White House, clearly indicates that he accomplished that removal while still President. Accordingly, the Presidential Records Act and all applicable precedent says the documents belong to him. Mr. Clark did not address that issue, but the issue he did address is a further mark against the indictment.