Special Counsel Jack Smith's big plan to prove links between Donald Trump and Jan. 6 rioters is reportedly going away.
Smith, who was recently hit with a sanctions motion in the federal election subversion case, previously announced in court documents his intention to use Google location data to track MAGA rioters from Trump's speech all the way into the Capitol.
But that plan is not going to be around for long, according to the Washington Post's Saturday report.
"Special counsel Jack Smith has a plan for how to illustrate Donald Trump’s influence over the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021," the article states. "Prosecutors will show a map of people gathered around the Ellipse to hear Trump say, 'we’re going to the Capitol' to 'fight like hell,' then follow those supporters in real time as they head down Pennsylvania Avenue to where lawmakers were certifying President Biden’s victory."
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The piece continues:
"That visualization, detailed in court filings in Trump’s federal election subversion case in D.C., was created with data from Google. But the tool that has pitted law enforcement investigative priorities against personal privacy concerns soon won’t be so accessible. The company will no longer store location history that was used to identify hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6 and to prosecute the man those rioters hoped to keep in power."
According to the Post, law enforcement agencies have used so-called geofence warrants "to pull information from smartphone owners who use 'Google location history,' which regularly records a person’s location through a combination of cell tower, internet protocol, wireless, GPS and Bluetooth data."
"Police can also approximate locations through pings to cell towers," according to the article. "But the Google data is far more precise — making it possible in many cases, for instance, to discern whether someone was in the Capitol or right outside it."
