Donald Trump's decision to offer payment of legal fees to potential witnesses was an act of obstruction, according to Special Counsel Jack Smith's legal filing that has recently been unsealed.
In a recently publicized filing from when Smith was seeking access to the former president's Twitter account in connection with the criminal case over Trump's 2020 election subversion efforts, Smith states the ways in which Trump has tried to undermine the criminal investigation. One of those methods is the paying of potential witnesses' legal fees, which is an issue in other Trump cases, as well.
"The former President's obstructive efforts continue unabated with respect to this investigation here, in which he has determined to pay the legal fees of potential witnesses against him and repeatedly disparaged the lead prosecutor on his Truth Social platform," the filing states.
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The news comes from New York Times national security and legal reporter Charlie Savage. Savage posted the document, saying, "In the just unsealed materials from the fight over Jack Smith's search warrant for Trump's Twitter account, the special counsel explicitly portrays Trump's paying of legal fees for 'potential witnesses against him' in the Jan 6 case as an obstructive act."
Former prosecutor Joyce Vance shared the image, and said the same "argument should apply with equal force with Co-defendants in the Mar-a-Lago case, where prosecutors' call for a Garcia hearing to evaluate the lawyers' conflicts of interest hasn't elicited a ruling from Judge Cannon."
