President Donald Trump and his top supporters have repeatedly been embarrassed in their attempts to prosecute Jack Smith, the official who himself prosecuted Trump for alleged crimes involving his election denial and document theft scandal.s. Yet even as Trump and his team fail to nab Smith over and over and over again, they continue to take swings at the lawman whose prosecutions against them apparently got under their skin.
Now his Justice Department is literally running scared of Smith.
"Trump DOJ runs scared from Jack Smith," AllRiseNews editor-in-chief Adam Klasfield posted on X on Monday. "Citing regs concerning "current or former employees," DOJ tries to block BBC from deposing Smith about Trump and the Jan. 6 insurrection. Smith agreed to testify."
Klasfield continued, "It cites grand jury secrecy, classified info privilege, exec privilege & more."
"Upon consideration of your request, the Department rejects it," the Justice Department wrote in a filing regarding the BBC's request to subpoena information about Smith from their ongoing cases with him. "Specifically, your request is denied because the testimony you seek is subject to the grand-jury-secrecy privilege, classified information privilege, law enforcement privilege, and executive privilege. See id. § 16.26(a)(2) (“In deciding whether to make disclosures pursuant to a demand, Department officials and attorneys should consider . . . [w]hether such disclosure is appropriate under the relevant substantive law concerning privilege.”). To the extent that the testimony you seek encompasses non-privileged information, Mr. Smith’s extensive public testimonies and report are adequate substitutes. Additionally, your request is denied because the deposition of Mr. Smith—a former high-ranking government official—would impose an undue burden on Mr. Smith and the Department."
Later, they further elaborated on why they did not want Smith to testify.
"The sought testimony pertains to information obtained by Mr. Smith in his former role as Special Counsel for the Department," the Justice Department argued. "You have not met your burden of establishing the presence of “extraordinary circumstances” to justify your request. See FDIC v. Galan-Alvarez, 2015 WL 5602342, at *3 (D.D.C. Sep. 4, 2015) (explaining that the party seeking the testimony of the high-ranking government official bears the burden of showing “extraordinary circumstances”). Extraordinary circumstances exist if “the official has unique firsthand knowledge related to the litigated claims or that the necessary information cannot be obtained through other, less burdensome or intrusive means.” Id. at *3 (citation omitted). As noted above, you have not shown that Mr. Smith has “unique firsthand knowledge,” of the events of January 6, 2021."
