Why was Jay Bratt – Jack Smith’s Senior Aide – visiting White House Counsel before Trump Indictment?

White House visitor logs show that an aide for special counsel Jack Smith quietly met with the White House Counsel’s office just weeks before the indictment of President Donald Trump on classified documents charges.

Visitor logs reviewed by The Epoch Times show that Jay Bratt, a prosecutor on Mr. Smith’s team, met with Caroline Saba, deputy chief of staff for President Joe Biden’s White House Counsel’s office, on March 31.

Although the logs provide no details as to the subject of the meeting or what was discussed, questions have been raised about why a member of Mr. Smith’s team would be meeting with the White House Counsel’s office while in the midst of an investigation into President Trump, who is President Biden’s chief rival in the 2024 presidential race.

…While the subject of the meeting remains a mystery, it took place several days after an Obama-appointed judge ordered Trump lawyer Evan Corcoran to testify before a grand jury in Mr. Smith’s investigation into documents held by the former president at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida.

Read more at Epoch Times

Who is Jay Bratt?

Jay Bratt is not some low level staffer. He is highly credentialed and is the Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section.

Jay I. Bratt, U.S. Department of Justice, Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section, The National Security Division, Washington, DC

Jay Bratt is the Chief of the Counterintelligence and Export Control Section (CES) of the National Security Division, where he oversees all of CES’ operations.  Mr. Bratt is also CES’ Principal Deputy Chief, and he was previously CES’ Deputy Chief for Export Control and Sanctions, with responsibility for reviewing and approving all export control and sanctions prosecutions the Department of Justice brought. 

He previously served as the Deputy Chief of the National Security Section in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. At the U. S. Attorney’s Office, he prosecuted a wide variety of Espionage Act, export enforcement, and counterterrorism matters.

Mr. Bratt has also served as the National Security Counselor to the Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Deputy Director of the Guantanamo Review Task Force, and Chief of the Litigation Section in the Office of Intelligence at the Department of Justice, where he oversaw requests for the use of information obtained through the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in connection with judicial and other proceedings.

Before that, Mr. Bratt had many years of experience as a line prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia and within the Department of Justice.  Mr. Bratt is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Brandeis University.