Main: Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton speaking during CPAC in February 2024 (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File). Inset: Jack Smith speaks about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, in Washington (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin).
A federal judge in Texas has outright rejected a request from the state’s highest legal officer for an order prohibiting special counsel Jack Smith from destroying any records in connection to his investigations into Donald Trump, disposing of the request as “unserious.”
In a four-page order, U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk on Monday denied Attorney General Ken Paxton’s request for an emergency restraining order demanding Smith and his team retain all documents relevant to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request from Paxton’s office, reasoning that there was no basis in fact for such an order.
As Law&Crime previously reported, Paxton earlier this month filed a FOIA request for a swath of documents and communications concerning Smith’s investigations into Trump, including cellphone data from Smith’s team. He followed that request by filing a motion asking the court to prohibit Smith and his team from destroying records to “avoid accountability.”
The filing baselessly asserted that the court’s intervention was required because the investigations themselves were unlawful, as were the actions of investigators involved in the probes. He alleged that without a court order, the DOJ would “simply destroy the records” he had requested, saying that Smith’s team had “conducted itself in multiple ways that suggest it cannot be blindly trusted to preserve, and eventually produce, all of its records.”
The DOJ responded to Paxton by stating that the department “is committed to preserving its records and following the law.”
But Paxton, a staunch Trump supporter, has long derided the investigations and subsequent federal prosecutions of the president-elect as being politically motivated. He claims that the Justice Department has a history of “mishandling critical records” and accuses the department of being “evasive” regarding his records request.
He followed up his initial restraining order request with a filing stating that there was an exigent need for the request to be granted, accusing previous special counsel teams of nefariously deleting files and claiming there was a “paper shredding truck” parked outside of the Justice Department’s headquarters.
But Kacsmaryk — a staunchly conservative judge appointed by Trump in 2019 — said the situation warranted no emergency relief, as Paxton failed to demonstrate there was a significant risk of Smith’s team breaking the law and deleting records.
“First, Plaintiffs do not plausibly allege that Smith has destroyed, is destroying, or will destroy documents subject to Paxton’s FOIA request,” Kacsmaryk wrote in the order.
Kacsmaryk also maligned Paxton for highlighting the presence of a paper shredding service at the DOJ.
“[Plaintiffs] claim that ‘widely shared photos showed a paper shredding truck parked outside DOJ headquarters,”” Kacsmaryk wrote. “Plaintiffs conclude that while ‘Defendants claim they are committed to preserving records, the public sees a truck seemingly ready to destroy them.’ This claim is unserious. Defendants could shred paper for many legitimate reasons, and Plaintiffs have proffered nothing to suggest more nefarious intentions.”
Smith this week was granted dismissals without prejudice of the criminal cases against Trump due to the DOJ’s long-standing policy against prosecuting a sitting president. He is reportedly planning to resign as special prosecutor before Trump takes office on Jan. 20.
The rejection of Paxton’s request comes after Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, also sent Smith a letter stating the committee was “concerned” that the special counsel’s office “may attempt to purge” records relevant to the committee’s request for information and documents.
“You should construe this preservation notice as an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration, whether intentionally or negligently, of all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, that are or may be responsive to this congressional inquiry,” Jordan wrote.
