Aide to White House special counsel's office met with member of Jack Smith's team

By 
 August 29, 2023

A new report says the White House counsel's office met with one of Special Counsel Jack Smith's high-level aides not long before former President Donald Trump's first federal indictment.

That's according to an article published by the New York Post this past Friday, which cited White House visitor log books.

Meeting came less than 10 weeks before Trump's indictment

They reveal that the meeting took place in the White House on March 31 between Caroline Saba, who serves as deputy chief of staff for the White House counsel’s office, and Jay Bratt, who became a member of Smith's legal team four months earlier.

That was less than 10 weeks from when Smith would hit Trump with multiple charges related to his handling of classified documents.

What's more, Saba and Bratt were also joined by FBI Special Agent Danielle Ray, who operates out of her agency's Washington, D.C. field office.

The Post noted that this was not the first time Saba and Bratt conferred with one another, as an earlier meeting between the two took place in November 2021.

Law professor says meeting March meeting "raises obvious concerns"

That meeting took place when Trump and the National Archives were battling over the return of presidential records and before any investigation into the former president had been officially opened.

Meanwhile, Bratt had engaged in yet another White House meeting in September of that year, in this case with White House chief of staff’s office advisor Katherine Reily.

Those meetings raised eyebrows among some observers, including George Washington University Law School professor Jonathan Turley.

The Post quoted him as saying that the March meeting "raises 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," he added.

Trump points to meetings as proof of "election interference"

NBC News reported that for his part, Trump lashed out at the news in a post on Monday to the social media platform Social Media.

"It has just been reported that aides to TRUMP prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, met with high officials at the White House just prior to these political SleazeBags Indicating me OVER NOTHING," he wrote

"If this is so, which it is, that means that Biden and his Fascist Thugs knew and APPROVED of this Country dividing Form of Election Interference, despite their insisting that they 'knew nothing,'" he added.

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