Special Counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor at the Justice Department leading the criminal case against Donald Trump over allegations of attempted election interference, has revealed (through team members) that the prosecution has an expert witness lined up who extracted data from Trump’s presidential cellphone.
The prosecution made this revelation in a court filing related more generally to testimony from expert witnesses expected for trial. The expert witness whose prospective testimony will cover phone data was not identified by name in the public filing. Per prosecutors, they obtained data specifically showing details like images on the device, browsing history, and when Twitter (as it was then known) was open on the phone on January 6. These specifics would allow the assembling of a granular timeline of Trump’s actions that day, showing perhaps opportunities when he could have spoken out more swiftly and directly against the violence and perhaps another avenue of awareness on his part of the chaos that was unfolding.
Elsewhere, prosecutors already pointed to evidence of what else Trump was allegedly doing that day — watching television at the White House. Relatedly, investigators also targeted data held at Twitter (now known as X) related to Trump’s account, which while removed after the Capitol attack in early 2021 spurred by Trump’s election lies is now publicly accessible again.
Prosecutors said: “The Government expects that Expert 3 will testify that he/she: (1) extracted and processed data from the White House cell phones used by the defendant and one other individual (Individual 1); (2) reviewed and analyzed data on the defendant’s phone and on Individual 1’s phone, including analyzing images found on the phones and websites visited; (3) determined the usage of these phones throughout the post-election period, including on and around January 6, 2021; and (4) specifically identified the periods of time during which the defendant’s phone was unlocked and the Twitter application was open on January 6.”
