We continue to receive intriguing but incomplete reports about what Special Counsel Jack Smith did a few weeks ago. And while they touch on the details of an already clearly powerful case of obstruction and other charges against Donald Trump in the federal classified documents case, they underscore the impression that the Smith case that is preparing will be overwhelming.

The latest revelations about the investigation go to the epicenter of the actual obstruction of justice case and to the heart of Trump’s anticipated defense.

We learned on Tuesday that Trump attorney Evan Corcoran was testing before a federal grand jury that he had been dismissed from searching Trump’s office while trying to comply with a subpoena for all classified documents in the former president’s possession. The instruction prevented Corcoran from finding more than 100 classified documents that the FBI later seized during a court-ordered search, some of which were in the office.

Corcoran’s testimony several weeks ago indicated that he was therefore materially misled when he was ejected from Trump’s office, the Guardian reported.

But by whom? That is the screaming question that the report leaves unanswered.

However, rest assured that Smith has an answer. The passive voice was dismissed, which materially deluded represents the limits of reporting, not testimony. Corcoran, who has been pulled out of the case as Trump’s attorney and has to be careful not to get caught in the same net as his former client, was certainly under pressure as to who exactly had waved him off.

And regardless of whether

or not

the message was delivered by some Trump aide, it is very likely that the command can be traced back to the ex-president. Who else would have the authority to issue such an instruction?

This may be the crux of the obstruction case, the moment when team Trump and probably Trump himself broke the law by deciding not to comply with the subpoena and lying about it.

The partial report of Corcoran’s testimony predicts a much more detailed and damning account at trial. It will be supplemented by the lawyer’s 50 pages of contemporary notes, which a court has already ruled is likely evidence of criminal conduct by Trump. Corcoran will likely testify that (a) he told Trump he couldn’t keep secret-marked documents and (b) he understood that Trump himself had instructed him not to look into the former president’s office.

From the mouth of Trump’s own lawyer, that’s a great testimony.

Yet another revelation came Wednesday, when CNN reported the existence of an audio recording of a 2021 rally in which Trump acknowledges that he kept a secret document about a possible attack on Iran. Equally important, he is heard suggesting that he cannot legally share the information with the people he spoke to.

Such a recording would quash the far-fetched defense Trump has made in public that he had unlimited authority to release any documents he took. On the contrary, he reportedly admits on the recording that he classified documents that cannot be legally distributed, refuting any claim that they were automatically released by his taking them.

The Guardian also reported that Trump says on the recording that he should have released the document, further undermining Trump’s alleged auto-release powers.

Even if Trump really waved a blank piece of paper at his interlocutors and merely pretended it was a secret document, as some commentators have suggested, his own words would show he was aware of the legal limits.

Team Trump has not commented on the merits of any of these reports. It only attacked them as government selective leaks, which seems unlikely. That would be a serious and risky offense for a prosecutor known for playing by the book, and would do little for the special counsel at this late stage in the case. The accounts read more like they come from witnesses or people who spoke to them, which is one of the reasons they are incomplete.

The accusation of the leaks is a pale distraction from the core of the reports: that the grand jury heard compelling evidence that the former president likely orchestrated failure to comply with the subpoena and knew his claims of plenary authority over classified documents were nonsense.

Harry Litman is the host of the

Talking Feds podcast

.

@harrylitman