The White House counsel’s office met with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s senior aide just weeks before he brought charges against former President Trump for alleged mishandling of classified documents — raising serious concerns about a coordinated legal effort aimed at a possible challenger to President Biden in 2024.
Jay Bratt, who joined the special counsel team in November 2022, shortly after it was formed, had a meeting at the White House on March 31, 2023, with Caroline Saba, deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, White House visitor logs show.
They were joined in the 10 a.m. meeting by Danielle Ray, an FBI agent in the Washington field office.
Nine weeks later, Trump was impeached by Smith’s office on June 8, 2023.
Bratt, 63, also met with Saba at the White House in November 2021, when Trump was caught up in negotiations with the National Archives, which is demanding the return of presidential records from his Mar-a-Lago estate before an official investigation has yet begun. has been opened.
Saba, who is not a lawyer, left the White House in May to attend law school.
Jay Bratt, a top assistant to special counsel Jack Smith met with the White House counsel’s office just weeks before Trump was indicted. DOJ
Bratt held a third meeting at the White House in September 2021, this time with Katherine Reily, an adviser to the White House chief of staff’s office.
Logs do not offer information about what was discussed at the meeting.
Critics and legal experts questioned why Bratt took a meeting at all with the White House counsel’s office while part of an active investigation into a possible Republican challenger to President Biden in 2024.
“There is no legitimate purpose for a line [DOJ] men to meet with the White House unless it is coordinated by the highest level,” said former NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, a one-time federal prosecutor in the Southern District.
Caroline Saba, deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, met with Jay Bratt at the White House, records show. Linkedin Caroline S.
When asked if he believed the White House and the special counsel were coordinating the prosecution of Trump, Giuliani said: “You’re right I do.”
“What has happened is that they have trashed every ethical rule that exists and they have created a state police. It’s the Biden state prosecutor and the Biden state police,” he continued.
The former mayor, who represented Trump during special counsel Robert Mueller’s 2018 investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, was indicted last week in Fulton County, Georgia in connection with an attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley said the March meeting was troubling and “raised obvious concerns about a visit to the White House after [Bratt] began his work with the special counsel.”
The White House meeting raises additional questions. AFP via Getty Images
“There is no reason why the Department of Justice cannot confirm whether this meeting is related to the ongoing investigation or involves some other matter,” he said.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for the special counsel, said Bratt was at the White House for a “case-related interview” but declined to comment further.
The FBI declined to comment.
A person with knowledge of the 2023 visit confirmed that it was “an interview of a career official who also worked in the White House during the Trump Administration.”
Rudy Giuliani, a former federal prosecutor, said the meeting suggested impropriety.AP
The same individual said the 2021 visit was “national security related.”
Bratt, a Harvard-educated lawyer, is a longtime Justice Department employee and has served as the head of its counterintelligence and export control division in the national security division since October 2018.
Follow today’s most important news
Stay up to date with the Evening Update.
This division focuses on the investigation and prosecution of cases affecting the national security and foreign relations of the United States.
In this capacity, Bratt visited Mar-a-Lago in June 2022 to inspect the property’s storage facilities and interact personally with Trump.
He later became a leading advocate for an unannounced FBI raid on the property in August of that year, the Washington Post reported.
Stanley Woodward, a lawyer for Trump’s valet Walt Nauta — who has also been indicted by the special counsel’s office — accused Bratt in June of trying to force his client’s cooperation by floating Woodward’s previous application to become a judge.
In a sealed filing obtained by The Guardian, Woodward claimed that Bratt floated his past judicial pleas to suggest it might be viewed more favorably if his client cooperated with the government against Trump.
Bratt is not the only Department of Justice related to Trump’s allegations.
Another longtime Justice Department official, Matthew Colangelo — newly hired in December 2022 to the far-left Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office — also played a key role in Trump’s indictment in New York City over alleged hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Categories: Trending
Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
