Trump's Senior Campaign advisor wants to stop Special Counsel from getting his depositions
Trump's Senior Campaign advisor wants to stop Special Counsel from getting his depositions
Jason Miller appears very afraid of Special Counsel Jack Smith, and he refused to say why when contacted multiple times.
Donald Trump’s seniormost campaign advisor demanded a legal wall of secrecy around civil deposition testimony in a federal civil case, citing his role in Special Counsel Jack Smith’s indictment of the former president for trying to overturn the 2020 election. (Documents shared at the bottom of the story.)
Jason Miller served as the Trump 2016 campaign’s Communications Director and senior advisor to the ill-fated Trump 2020 campaign and is currently in the same role on the ex-president’s 2024 campaign.
His lawyers from Greenberg Traurig served a 2-page letter and 12-page proposed protective order to the plaintiff in a pregnancy discrimination case against the 2106 Trump campaign.
Their stated goal in keeping Miller’s depositions a secret is to shield his campaign-related testimony from Special Counsel Jack Smith and a family court judge in Miami, Florida.
Miller’s former paramour, Harvard-trained lawyer A.J. Delgado, filed that federal suit in New York’s Southern District court. She served as his subordinate during the 2016 campaign.
In the letter’s subject, the high-powered lawyers wrote: “Re: Subpoena of July 12, 2023 Delgado v. Donald J. Trump for President et al., Case No. 19-cv-11764 (AT)” and wrote the following:
We represent Jason Miller, who was served with a third-party subpoena in the above-referenced case on the evening of Monday, July 31, 2023…..
Mr. Miller is willing to sit for a third-party deposition in the above-captioned suit notwithstanding that he was just served with this subpoena two days ago. But Mr. Miller is also protective of his minor child, and is also mindful of the Special Counsel’s recently unsealed indictment against the president. (author’s emphasis)
Right beneath the document’s title, “STIPULATED PROTECTIVE ORDER,” Miller’s proposed agreed order to the court contains the following language verbatim:
In the interests of ensuring efficient and prompt resolution of this action, mindful of third-party deponent Jason Miller’s privacy rights and the high-profile nature of this action, and to protect confidential information from improper disclosure or use in light of ongoing family law proceedings between Mr. Miller and Plaintiff Delgado as well as ongoing proceedings brought by the Special Counsel… (author’s emphasis)
Delgado informed this reporter that she “did not and will not” agree to the protective order proposed by the Trump advisor’s lawyers.
How unusual is the length and scope of the former Gettr social network CEO’s request for secrecy?
“This protective order is unusually broad and expansive for purposes of third-party witness testimony, and no doubt reflects ongoing concern by Miller that he may still get tied up in the former president’s criminal woes beyond being a mere fact witness,” says Washington, D.C. based lawyer Bradley Moss of the Mark Zaid P.C. firm, who has appeared as a legal commentator on both MSNBC and Fox News.
“While this could just be aggressive defensive lawyering by Miller, it is difficult to ignore the reference to Special Counsel Smith’s ongoing proceedings in the order.” - Bradley Moss.
In September, Miller’s lawyers from Greenberg Traurig were highlighted in an Open Secrets story saying they’ve been paid $2.8 million from Trump’s political network, partly due to his testimony to the House’s Select Committee that investigated January 6th.
The above-described letter from Greenberg Traurig’s Nathan J. Muyskens, Esq. and proposed order refer to a separate proceeding in Florida, whereby Miller petitioned* Miami-Dade’s 11th Circuit Court in the summer of 2017 for paternity testing and it was, as a result, established that he is the father of Delgado's son, as she always maintained. (*This would make him the party who initiated the action.)
But in the more than six years since then, the Trump campaign official has opposed most attempts for Delgado to obtain his financial records and a deposition to finalize the child support proceedings. On his part, Miller has requested and obtained an extraordinary level of secrecy in the Florida case.
Recently, Jason Miller’s family court lawyer, Sandy T. Fox, Esq. successfully convinced state court Judge Hon. Spencer Jet Multack to issue an order to seal a 2019 letter the Trump advisor sent to the court. The document he personally signed indicated that he took steps to voluntarily commit himself to a medical institution for alcohol rehabilitation, as well as to handle his mental health problems.
Judge Multack’s order doesn’t cite any binding authority as to why Miller’s motion to strike, a legal avenue that only applies to pleadings and not notices of filing, is enough to remove a document from the public court docket. Nonetheless, Judge Multack struck the documents from the court record. (A copy of the now-sealed document is at the bottom of this report.)
Miller’s main job is advising a national political campaign whose primary political saw is criticizing President Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, for the results of his substance abuse problems, including the foreign funds he received from China.
Credible reporting indicates that while Jason Miller claimed the now-indicted expatriate Chinese national Guo Wengui did not control his former employer, the Gettr social network, he was actually communicating instructions with the Trump advisor during key moments.
“Jason Miller continuously demands absurd levels of VIP treatment from the courts. He demanded a confidentiality order in our family law matter in 2017 and has demanded secrecy protections in other litigation, even when he is the plaintiff,” says A.J. Delgado in reply to a request for comment on this story.
“Not even the Pope would demand such special treatment and such cloaks of secrecy,” she concluded.
When reached for comment about this story by email, Jason Miller replied with expletives and an ad hominem attack against this author. Despite being given a second opportunity to address questions about the substance of this report, he preferred to reiterate and expound upon his initial position but not to comment on this report. In a third and final request for comment, the Trump advisor referenced past defamatory remarks he made about his former lover.
Jason Miller’s Greenberg Traurig letter:
Jason Miller’s proposed protective order:
Jason Miller’s letter to Florida’s 11th Circuit Court about his voluntary commitment:
