NOT A GOOD LOOK

Special Counsel Says Trump Deliberately Misled Lawyers on Classified Docs: Report

A former top federal judge reportedly wrote that the evidence was enough to pierce Trump’s attorney-client privilege, but not enough to seek charges against him.

Jack Smith, the special counsel appointed by the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Donald Trump’s potential mishandling of classified documents, has found “compelling preliminary evidence” that the former president knowingly misled his own legal team about holding onto the records after leaving office, sources told ABC News on Tuesday. Smith’s reported findings were referenced in a sealed filing penned Friday by a former top federal judge, the sources said. U.S. Judge Beryl Howell, who stepped down as the D.C. district court's chief judge on the same day, reportedly wrote that Smith’s prosecutors had made a “prima facie showing that the former president had committed criminal violations.” In her filing, Howell wrote that what Smith’s office had found was enough to render the attorney-client privileges previously invoked by two of Trump’s attorneys void, but did not constitute grounds to seek charges against the former president. In a statement, a Trump campaign spokesperson shamed “Fake News ABC for broadcasting ILLEGALLY LEAKED false allegations from a Never Trump, now former chief judge, against the Trump legal team.”