Secret Obama Memo Could Impact Jack Smith’s Case Against Trump

(Congress Report) – A secret memo has been discovered by right-leaning watchdog group America First Legal and it could spell disaster for Special Counsel Jack Smith’s claim that former President Donald Trump did not possess the authority to hang on to classified documents, which is the foundation of Smith’s entire case against him. Of course, we all know the indictments brought against Trump are nothing more than the weaponization of federal law enforcement as a means to remove him from the 2024 general election where he would face off in a rematch against the incumbent, President Joe Biden.

Jack Smith indicted the former president last June on 37 counts of storing classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

He was then brought to a federal court in Florida and charged with 31 counts of willful retention of national defense information along with a total of 6 other process crimes that come from conversations he had with his legal representatives. The following month, Smith brought three more charges against the former president.

Just a week ago, the AFL filed a Freedom of Information Act request against the Department of Defense in order to obtain more information on a highly secretive committee that was established by former President Barack Obama. Back in 2014, Obama created the Presidential Information Technology Committee after hackers from Russia managed to break into the Executive Office of the President’s network.

“Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment against former President Trump, claims ‘Trump was not authorized to possess or retain…classified documents.’ But Obama’s PITC memo may have created a reasonable belief in President Trump that he, in fact, had such authority,” America First Legal reported.

“Unlocking this secret of the Obama presidency is not only important for public transparency, it has clear implications for whether the government may have failed to disclose necessary information to the defendant as part of its prosecution of former President Trump – and this information may significantly affect the evidentiary support relied upon in indicting and continuing to prosecute a former President. The American people deserve to know the truth behind this secretive memo and how it has been used,” America First Legal’s Dr. Dan Epstein went on to say.

/1🚨BREAKING — A secret Obama memo, the Presidential Information Technology Committee (PITC), regarding control of Presidential records could change everything in the DOJ’s politicized prosecution of Trump…

THREAD: pic.twitter.com/fqdxj2xg83

— America First Legal (@America1stLegal) January 30, 2024

“In October 2014, Russian hackers breached the Executive Office of the President (EOP)’s network. In response, President Obama created, via executive action, PITC. PITC includes representatives of the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, among others,” the AFL report noted.

“First, PITC creates a presumption that the President controls all information he receives. The PITC memo established the President’s exclusive control over information resources and systems provided to the President. (§ 1, ¶ 2.). The memo created the presumption that information contained on information systems and resources was ‘EOP information.’ ( § 4(f)). Because the memo relied upon the Federal Records Act’s definition of ‘information system’ as resources organized for the ‘use’ and ‘disposition’ of ‘information’, the memo gives the President exclusive control over information he receives. This is relevant to what a President may reasonably believe about information given to him while in office,” it continued in its explanation.

The piece then revealed that if information Smith used to form the foundation of his case against Trump was stored on the PITC, the evidence should have been disclosed to the former president and might be relevant to his liability.

“Additionally, if the records Trump allegedly destroyed are still preserved within the EOP or the U.S. Department of Defense as part of PITC-created information systems, then other claims in the indictment may be baseless,” the report divulged.

America First Legal stated that their findings are fully supportive of the whitepaper they originally produced that contends a President of the United States has absolute authority over any and all presidential papers, and Congress and courts cannot place any limit on this authority.