Christina Bobb during her days as a commentator on the far-right One America News Network. (Image via screengrab)
Smartmatic served former President Donald Trump’s lawyer and onetime One America News talking head Christina Bobb with a subpoena for documents that the company seeks over their multi-billion dollar defamation claims against Fox News related to the 2020 presidential election.
Made public in a court filing on Tuesday, the subpoena seeks broad categories of documents from Bobb — but not her testimony.
The broad subpoena seeks any documents and communications that Bobb may have “with or concerning” Smartmatic or Dominion, another voting machine company that was a target of pro-Trump conspiracy theories about the 2020 presidential election.
During the 2020 presidential election, Smartmatic machines were only used in Los Angeles County, California, where President Joe Biden’s victory was never in doubt. But Smartmatic and Dominion were both held out as scapegoat for Trump’s defeat, despite the implausibility of the theory. Smartmatic alleges that Fox News knew that before broadcasting the conspiracy theories anyway.
The company seeks any “documents and communications” Bobb might have about coverage of that election with Fox News or “other news organizations,” a phrase defined broadly as including print and TV outlets “including but not limited to the Wall Street Journal, ABC News, One America News Network, and Newsmax.”
Bobb routinely peddled the false notion that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.
Now, she also must turn over communications with other peddlers of that lie, including Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Mike Lindell, Michael Flynn and several other Trump allies and associates. She also must turn over her communications with the Trump administration and Trump campaign.
The campaign’s definition includes another cavalcade of Trump loyalists, lawyers and family members, including Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Bill Stepien, Jason Miller, Stephen Miller, Justin Clark, Matt Morgan, Donald Trump, Jr., Eric Trump, Lara Trump, Kimberly Guilfoyle, Katrina Pierson, Boris Epshteyn, Michael Roman, Kayleigh McEnany, Gary Michael Brown, and Katherine Friess.
Smartmatic’s filing highlights the web of litigation that Bobb has gotten pulled into for representing Trump. She was reported to have been the lawyer instructed to falsely certify in May that she performed a “diligent search” of Mar-a-Lago and only a few documents had not been returned to the government.
Months later in August, the FBI searched Mar-a-Lago and found more than 100 more documents marked classified up to “Top Secret” and above, as well as more than 11,000 other documents without classification markings. She is now believed to be a central figure in the Justice Department’s obstruction of justice investigation. The search warrant authorizing the FBI’s search showed Trump is also being investigated under the Espionage Act and for suspected concealment and removal of government records.
That investigation is now being led by special counsel Jack Smith, who had his debut legal battle in the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals earlier on Tuesday.
As shown by the subpoena, Bobb’s involvement in Trump-related court proceedings is not likely to disappear soon.
“These Document Requests are continuing in nature, and any Document identified subsequent to the service of these Requests that would have been included in the responses had it been known of shall promptly be supplied by supplemental responses whenever you find, locate, acquire, or become aware of such Documents, up until the time of trial,” the first schedule of the subpoena states. “Supplemental responses are to be served as soon as reasonably possible after identification of such Documents.”
Smartmatic’s lawyers David D. Pope and Edward Wipper, both from the firm Benesch, Friedlander, Coplan & Aronoff LLP, signed the filing.
Bobb, whose attorney did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s request for comment, has 20 days to comply with the first document requests.
Read the subpoena here.
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