Former Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office bent its own purchasing rules to acquire forensic video software days before its indictment of President Donald Trump regarding the 2020 election, according to Justice Department records released by the Oversight Project.
The documents, obtained through the Oversight Project’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, land before Smith testifies Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning his lawfare against Trump. They raise new questions about whether his office followed appropriate legal and ethical standards and what video Smith needed so urgently.
The records show that on June 26, 2023, Smith’s Litigation Support asked Axon Investigate, a component of Axon Enterprises, for its services “for converting all types of video and audio files including lots of proprietary types we receive.”
The “proprietary” video or videos and audio Smith sought have never been identified. But law enforcement officials showed little restraint in their lawfare of Trump.
Most notoriously, FBI agents raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in August 2022, even ransacking Melania Trump’s wardrobe, acquiring surveillance footage.
The opaqueness of Smith’s lawfare is striking, even years later. Smith’s work with Axon is no exception.
When Smith’s office asked for its pricing to aid in its video and audio conversion, Axon replied, “[w]e do not publish the cost of licenses/software,” the document shows. And the Department of Justice still withholds every price as Axon’s confidential information, so taxpayers cannot see what they paid.
Smith’s partisan investigation of Trump “likely” cost taxpayers more than $50 million, Fox News estimated, based on DOJ reports.
At the time of his office’s request to Axon, Smith was clearly motivated to move fast. His office had indicted Trump for retention of classified documents days earlier on June 8, and it was heading towards its next indictment.
On July 12, weeks after that initial request to Axon, Smith’s office’s Records Officer, the official responsible for its records, told Axon to ship overnight, writing, “[w]e are in desperate need of this software.”
The next morning, on July 13, Axon’s federal inside sales representative, Christina Zeman, appeared willing to move forward, responding via email, “[p]leasure meeting you. I will be assisting with placing your order,” adding that she looked “forward to working with you.”
But minutes later, Smith’s executive officer Ariel McIntyre paused the order, citing the office’s approval process.
“As Jack [Smith] mentioned in our budget briefing, he supports more strict requirements than DOJ’s standard policies,” she wrote. Deviating from it, she added, was something “I’m not ok with.”
In another email that morning, she wrote that she needed “to crack down on our processes” and had “a lot less leeway in the audit now that I have staff.”
It is not clear what McIntyre referenced by “the audit.”
Yet later that morning, she authorized the purchase “prior to creating the UFMS obligation,” referring to DOJ’s Unified Financial Management System, because the card was not linked to the finance system “and the purchase is urgent.”
The following morning, on July 14, Zeman, the federal inside sales representative, wrote to Smith’s office, “[r]eceived and I have submitted your order.”
It is not clear from the documents what happened to facilitate the purchase or who approved the apparent exemption, but Axon shipped its license dongles, the devices Smith sought, five days later on July 15.
On August 1, 2023, just two weeks later, Smith indicted Trump again, this time alleging he sought to overturn the 2020 election.
Although Smith took steps to limit public viewing into his investigations of Trump, others outside of DOJ might hold answers.
Axon’s quote to Smith’s office incorporates a data-sharing agreement, its Customer Experience Improvement Program, covering “sharing of de-identified segments of Agency Content with Axon to develop new products.”
Yet even that raises questions, as the only signature page of the agreement DOJ released is unsigned, and other paperwork is missing.
The released purchase card form, justified only as “Investigation software,” has an empty funding section and blank signature blocks. Staff later wrote that the form “is signed,” but that version was not released.
It is not clear what happened to the software or license dongles his office purchased, or what happened to the project files. After Trump’s victory in November 2024, Smith dropped his election interference case against Trump – a federal judge had thrown out Smith’s business records case – and later resigned just nine days before Trump was sworn in (after which Smith almost assuredly would have been fired).
President Joe Biden reportedly expressed regret for having appointed Attorney General Merrick Garland, who appointed Smith, complaining that his office was not quick or aggressive enough in prosecuting Trump.
Bradley Jaye is Political Editor for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter and Instagram @BradleyAJaye or email him at bjaye@breitbart.com.
