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Images found on Donald Trump's phone are to be used as evidence in his upcoming election fraud trial, a new court filing has shown.
Images found on the phone of a co-conspirator, identified by CBS News as Rudy Giuliani, are also to be used in the trial, which is due to begin in Washington, D.C in March.
Prosecutors have not yet revealed the nature of the images.
Denver Riggleman, a former technical advisor to the January 6 committee, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, 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," he wrote.
Riggleman, a former Republican congressman for Virginia, said he wished the January 6 committee had the same access to phone records during its investigations.
"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.
He said he would love to get his hands on that type of data.
Chief prosecutor Jack Smith announced in a 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.
One of the three, identified 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 Smith's filing.
Media sources have claimed that Individual 1 is former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.
Newsweek sought email comment on Tuesday from Giuliani's spokesperson and from Trump's attorney.
Trump was indicted on four counts in Washington, D.C. for allegedly working to overturn the results of the 2020 election in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, riot in the U.S. Capitol. 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 frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination. He has also pleaded not guilty to charges in the other cases and has repeatedly said that they form part of a political witch hunt.
Former federal prosecutor Joyce Vance wrote on X on Tuesday that the announcement is "really bad news for Trump."
"Jack Smith got into Trump's phone and the expert who did it will testify to the usage of these phones throughout the post-election period, including on and around January 6, 2021, when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the Capitol," she wrote.
"Sounds like the government will use geolocation data from phones to show how people moved from the Ellipse to the Capitol after hearing Trump speak on January 6 and data from White House phones as well."
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