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Donald Trump's lawyers will be "totally freaked out" by the amount of evidence that experts have extracted from his phone, according to a former federal prosecutor.
Harry Litman, an attorney and constitutional law lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), was reacting to prosecutors' announcement that they will be calling phone experts to give evidence in Donald Trump's election fraud trial.
The three experts analyzed Donald Trump's phone, extracted images, geolocation data, internet history and the times he was using his phone to post on social media to show his alleged encouragement of the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.
One expert, identified only as Expert 3, "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," according to Monday's filing by chief prosecutor Jack Smith.
CBS News reported that Individual 1 is former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Giuliani is one of six uncharged individuals in the indictment.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter on Tuesday, Litman said: "The bland disclosure of expert witness #3 by Jack Smith in the 1/6 trial has to have the Trump camp totally freaked out. Expert apparently can figure out thru Twitter data not just what Trump tweeted and visited but his physical whereabouts and others who used his phone. Gulp!"
Newsweek reached out to Giuliani's spokesman and Trump's attorney via email for comment on Wednesday.
Prosecutors have not yet revealed the nature of the images found on Trump's phone.
Jack Smith announced in a Washington, D.C., court filing on Monday that he intends to call three phone data experts to testify about Trump's movements and social media posts during the January 6 riots at the Capitol building.
Trump was indicted on four counts in the Washington case for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot. Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding.
It is one of four criminal cases that Trump is facing while he campaigns as the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He has pleaded not guilty to charges in the other cases and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political "witch hunt."
Denver Riggleman, a former technical advisor to the January 6 committee, posted on X on Tuesday that the phone records will be of enormous help to prosecutors. He also said that geolocation data that will be presented as evidence will also show the "pattern of life" of Trump and others in the case.
"This is very good news. Anyone can lie or obfuscate during interviews—or conveniently forget. But ones and zeros—data is the way. Content stored locally and backed up by link analysis and pattern of life is powerful indeed," Riggleman wrote.
Riggleman, a former Virginia Republican congressman, said in a separate post that he wished the January 6 committee had the same access to phone records during its investigation.
"One thing I wished we had during the J6 committee investigation—access to specific phone device data. Device data is specific to the phone itself and different from Call Detail Records (CDRs)," he said. "They might have CDRs too. Love to get my hands on that..."
Update 12/13/23 15:01 p.m ET: This article was updated to reflect that UCLA is an abbreviation for the University of California, Los Angeles.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more