Special counsel Jack Smith is reportedly ready to drop a hammer blow of up to 45 additional criminal charges on former President Donald Trump in the classified documents case, especially if Trump-friendly Judge Aileen Cannon looks set to thwart the case.
The ex-Brooklyn prosecutor is prepared to bring additional charges in various federal jurisdictions against Trump based in part on multiple additional incriminating tapes of Trump, The Independent reported Thursday, quoting “people familiar with the matter.”
Prosecutors are readying what is known as a superseding indictment in part as a back-up plan in case Cannon seeks to stall or derail the case against Trump that was filed in the southern district of Florida, in which Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort home is located, the paper said.
The new charges could come “in the coming weeks.”
One likely venue for additional charges against Trump would be New Jersey because Trump allegedly kept and even showed off some of the highly classified documents to aides at his Bedminster golf resort.
Smith’s team is poised to “stack (an) additional 30 to 45 charges” on Trump as well as top aides based on what the paper described as fresh evidence that is not yet publicly known, including more tapes of Trump.
The report suggests Smith’s team is deeply concerned about the possibility that Cannon could act in unforeseen ways to protect Trump.
Cannon, an arch-conservative with very limited experience on the bench, issued several rulings that sought to protect Trump after the August 2022 search of Mar-a-Lago turned up more than 100 classified documents that Trump kept in defiance of a federal subpoena.
She even made a bizarre claim that Trump holds a special status as a former president that merits deferential treatment from prosecutors. A conservative appeals court panel overturned Cannon’s ruling in a sharply worded ruling.
The report about Smith’s aggressive plans came on the same day that a separate published report said the Miami grand jury that indicted Trump is still investigating different aspects of the classified documents case.
The panel has issued new subpoenas since Trump was charged, suggesting the south Florida panel could wind up issuing its own new charges or adding evidence to the 37 counts that Trump already faces there, The New York Times reported.
Meanwhile a trusted campaign aide to former President Donald Trump has been revealed as a key figure in special counsel Jack Smith’s classified documents probe.
Susie Wiles, a top official in Trump’s failed reelection bid, is the person to whom Trump allegedly showed a classified map in summer 2021, ABC News first reported late Wednesday, citing sources.
Wiles is only identified in the indictment of Trump as a “PAC Representative” who was meeting with the former president when he showed off the map during a discussion of what he said was a deteriorating security situation in the unnamed nation.
Trump told Wiles that he “should not be showing the map” to her and “not to get too close,” the indictment claims.
The damning episode is cited in the indictment along with Trump’s caught-on-tape claim to show a highly classified plan for a U.S. attack on Iran to book researchers at Bedminster in 2021.
The incidents could amount to powerful evidence against Trump because they show he knew he held onto classified information and that he wanted to use the documents for his own personal reasons.
Trump has spun various excuses for his actions, including most recently asserting that he was only expressing “bravado” in the Bedminster meeting and didn’t actually have any classified documents.
Legal analysts say the tape would likely prove very persuasive evidence to a jury, despite Trump’s denial. The classified map incident could further bolster the case against Trump, especially since his own top aide would be the one relating the episode.
