A new report has revealed that the White House counsel’s office held a meeting with Special Counsel Jack Smith’s top aide and an FBI agent roughly two months before Smith indicted former President Donald Trump for allegedly mishandling classified documents.
Smith’s top aide, Jay Bratt, and FBI agent Danielle Ray from the Washington, D.C., field office met with Caroline Seba, deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, on March 31 — according to White House visitor logs obtained by the New York Post.
BREAKING: White House visitor logs show that special counsel Jack Smith’s top aid met with Biden staffers just weeks before Smith’s indictment of Trump.
They’re scheming in broad daylight and they don’t even care.
On March 31, 2023, deputy chief of staff for the White House… pic.twitter.com/0AQ4osUpdG
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) August 26, 2023
The special counsel indicted Trump in the classified documents case on June 8. While the visitor logs don’t provide any details as to what was discussed during the meeting between Smith’s top aide, the White House counsel’s office and the FBI, former Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani told the New York Post in a statement that the meeting suggests a coordinated prosecution of the former president — who is also President Joe Biden’s chief rival.
“There is no legitimate purpose for a line [DOJ] guy to be meeting with the White House except if it’s coordinated by the highest levels,” Giuliani told the outlet in a written statement.
“What’s happening is they have trashed every ethical rule that exists and they have created a state police. It is a Biden state prosecutor and a Biden state police,” he added.
Bratt is even closer to Trump’s classified documents case than just serving as a top aide to Smith in Washington, D.C. — as he actually visited Mar-a-Lago prior to the infamous FBI raid. According to The Daily Wire, “Bratt reportedly visited the estate in June 2022, two months before the raid, and interacted with Trump.”
The outlet went on to note that Bratt “pushed for a warrant for the unannounced raid,” citing a report from the Washington Post, adding that “Bratt’s temper flared during the meeting when he told FBI agents that they could no longer trust the former president or his lawyers.”
The New York Post also received a statement from George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley about the meeting between Bratt, the White House and the FBI. Turley agreed with Giuliani’s argument, pointing out that the meeting raised “obvious concerns about visits to the White House after [Bratt] began his work with the special counsel.”
“There is no reason why the Justice Department should not be able to confirm whether this meeting was related to the ongoing investigation or concerns some other matter,” Turley wrote.
In a statement to the New York Post, a spokesman for the special counsel claimed that Bratt was at the White House for a “case-related interview.” The FBI declined to comment on the meeting.
This is just the latest in a long line of concerning reports about Smith and the people he surrounds himself with in his attempts to convict Trump — with many critics arguing that his prosecutions amount to interference in the 2024 election.
