Trump is blaming Jack Smith for 'evidence tampering' the ex-president caused: NYT reporter

Donald Trump recently accused Special Counsel Jack Smith of "evidence tampering" in connection with the criminal documents case in Florida, but the alleged issue stems from something the former president did, a New York Times reporter said Saturday.

Trump Friday railed against the classified documents criminal case he faces in the sunshine state, accusing Smith of evidence tampering and demanding the entire case be dropped.

"It has always been clear that the 'Documents Case' is nothing but an Election Interference Scam concocted by Crooked Joe Biden, Deranged Jack Smith, and their Hacks and Thugs," he said before he alleged misconduct on behalf of the prosecutors.

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Alan Feuer, who covers all matters legal (and illegal) for the Times, flagged a report from the conservative outlet The Gateway Pundit. That site recently declared bankruptcy after facing a defamation suit, according to prior news reports.

The report claims "Jack Smith Admits FBI Messed with Boxes Containing 'Classified' Documents They Seized from Trump."

Feuer, however, says that the "'evidence tampering' alleged in this story was-- according to a filing *by defense lawyers in this case*-- caused by Trump's own insistence that a special master review the documents after their seizure during the search of Mar-a-Lago."

"Surely if the defense lawyers working on this case believed there had been evidence tampering they would have immediately raised the issue w/Judge Cannon--that's defense lawyer gold!" he added. "But at least at this point, no such issues have been raised."

Hugo Lowell of The Guardian chimed in on that note, saying, "[S]ure, although it’s also not that hard to keep docs in the right order — [especially] when you know Trump lawyers are likely to claim the jumbled up nature of the docs (?) suggests it wasn’t willful retention etc."

"Sure, that makes sense. And yet the allegations all surround the issue of which boxes contained classified docs and where those boxes were in time/space," Feuer responded. "The placement of individual docs inside the boxes is significantly less important to the charged conduct."

Ultimately, they reached agreement.

"We both agree that the [Gateway Pundit] story is dumb but it was needlessly careless to screw up the box contents and exactly the kind of thing that defense counsel would crow about," Lowell said.

"Fair," Feuer said.