Fox News host Mark Levin has attacked Special Counsel Jack Smith for stalking former President Trump’s attorney-client privilege.
Prosecutors at the Justice Department on Tuesday asked a federal judge to compel one of Trump’s attorneys, M. Evan Corcoran, to answer more questions before a grand jury about the former president’s handling of classified documents. Prosecutors cited the fraud exception to circumvent attorney-client privilege.
That exception, Levin said, is used when prosecutors believe a client is seeking the advice of an attorney to help further a crime or fraud.
“Then it is said that communication is not privileged. So the prosecution goes to a judge and says, ‘Look, I have evidence here that this is basically a ruse, that the client is actually using the attorney to commit an ongoing crime and fraud,'” he explained at Life Liberty & Levin.
WHO IS SPECIAL COUNSEL JACK SMITH APPOINTED TO INVESTIGATE TRUMP?
M. Evan Corcoran, an attorney for US President Donald Trump’s former White House chief Steve Bannon, arrives after his client’s trial for contempt of charges by Congress over his refusal to cooperate with the US House of Representatives, which ordered the attack on January 6, 2021 investigates Capitol, in US District Court in Washington, United States, July 22, 2022. (Portal/Evelyn Hockstein)
Levin argued that attorney-client privilege is a fundamental right protected by the Bill of Rights and vital to a functioning government.
He called Smith for trying to pierce it, saying he had a “wildly broad interpretation of disability.”
“I don’t need to read tea leaves. I see what he’s doing and he wants to bring a disability case, but he wants to go against a principle that applies to all of us when it comes to justice and lawyers,” he said.
“Our civil liberties are being violated. Our Bill of Rights are violated. If they can do this to Donald Trump, or if they can drag lawyers before grand juries, violate attorney-client privilege, take their iPhones and cell phones, take their testimonies, take their emails, take their texts. Well what’s left? They’re after Rudy Giuliani. They’re after John Eastman. They’re after Joe diGenova. They are after Victoria Toensing. You have now prosecuted Evan Corcoran and two other attorneys in connection with the documents case. Have you ever seen anything like this in your life?
Levin added that Smith and his fellow prosecutors claim to be defending the nation’s Constitution and security, but instead are “steamrolling” the Bill of Rights.
“Attorney-client privilege is crucial. The crime and fraud exception is a rare exception. It should not be regulated or routine or we will no longer have the ability to have effective counsel representation,” he explained.
GOP QUESTIONS IMPARTIALITY OF NEW TRUMP SPECIAL REPRESENTATIVE
This image, contained in a Justice Department court filing dated Aug. 30, 2022 and partially redacted from the source, shows a photo of documents found during the FBI search of former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home on Aug August were confiscated . Trump lawyers have turned over other classified-marked documents and a laptop belonging to a Trump adviser to federal investigators in recent months. (Department of Justice via AP)
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“Mass murderers, terrorists, what have you — attorney-client privilege is seldom breached when it applies to them, and yet it has been pierced in a serial nature when it applies to Donald Trump and Republicans, Republican legislators and Republican legislators. This is just further evidence of the dissolution of our freedoms,” he said.