The immediate focus of Special Counsel Jack Smith‘s big reveal on forthcoming expert witness testimony in Donald Trump’s election-subversion case seems to land on the events of January 6, 2021 — and former President’s alleged role in stoking the violence that befell the Capitol that day.
But when Smith dropped the truth bomb that his office is in possession of data from Trump’s phone(s), the implicated dates covered a much broader span than merely January 6.
The expert witness (Expert #3) who accessed the phone data — according to the Special Counsel pleading presenting the government’s summary of expert testimony — will reveal “the periods of time during which the defendant’s phone was unlocked and the Twitter application was open on January 6,” as former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance quotes in a tweet citing the final line in Smith’s 3-page filing.
3/"The expert…will be able to “specifically” identify “the periods of time during which the defendant’s phone was unlocked & the Twitter application was open on January 6.”
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) December 11, 2023
He won't be able to say whether Trump or someone else was using it, although presumably there will be…
But the more expansive timeframe referenced in the pleading comprises the entire “post-election period” — not just the day of the insurrection. The pleading tells the court the expert who accessed the phone data will testify on “the usage of these phones throughout the post-election period, including on and around January 6, 2021…”
That language — “throughout the post-election period” — appears to signify a comprehensive view of data on Trump-controlled mobile devices from the election in November of 2020 to perhaps as far forward as the present, as Smith’s case includes the allegation that Trump’s continual and current election denialism is part of the former President’s ongoing effort to defraud.
[From the filing: “The Government expects that Expert 3 will testify that he/she: (1) extracted and processed data from the White House cell phones used by the defendant and one other individual.”]
