Then-Attorney General Pam Bondi speaks to the media, June 27, 2025, in the briefing room of the White House in Washington, as President Trump looks on (AP Photo/Manuel Ceneta, File).
A federal judge took President Donald Trump's "animus" toward Smartmatic into account while finding that "limited discovery" into the potentially selective or vindictive origins of the voting machine company's superseding indictment is "warranted."
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, who previously issued a sanctions order in Trump's lawsuit against the IRS, said Tuesday there was "some evidence" that supported Smartmatic's motion to dismiss.
That Trump has "expressed at least some degree of animus" toward Smartmatic is part of that evidence, the judge said.
"President Trump's stated animus towards those who 'rigged' the election, including his reposted content about Smartmatic, suggests a possible discriminatory intent that is both personal and political," Williams wrote.
Smartmatic claimed that Trump and then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi "singled out" the company for a superseding indictment because of its defamation lawsuits against MAGA allies in the wake of the 2020 election, even though it had cooperated in the prosecutions of its executives for alleged bribery and money laundering in the Philippines in 2016.
Like Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the company argued that it was being wrongly targeted for exercising a lawful right — specifically the defense of its reputation against false stolen election claims.
In support of its argument that it is being selectively prosecuted, Smartmatic said the existence of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) prosecution ran directly counter to Bondi's decision to "shift focus away from" FCPA cases and counter to Trump's pardons of "at least 38 individuals charged with or convicted of a total of fraud, corruption, and money laundering offenses."
Williams has now concluded that the "totality of the circumstances in this case" tilts in Smartmatic's favor, but in a "limited" way.
The judge has ordered the government to hand over internal memoranda and communications about the "decision to charge" Smartmatic for a sealed review in her chambers as soon as Nov. 17.
The order demands "[a]ll communications, including emails, memoranda, and correspondence, between the Department of Justice — including principals and personnel in the Offices of the Attorney General, the Associate Attorney General, the Deputy Attorney General, and the Principal Deputy Attorney General — and former Acting United States Attorney Hayden O'Byrne, United States Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones, and any member of the past and present prosecution team relating to or discussing the decision to charge SGO and when to charge SGO from January 1, 2025 to October 16, 2025."
According to the judge, citing a vindictive prosecution case in the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, "there is enough smoke here" to grant the motion to compel and probe how the "unusual" Smartmatic indictment "came about."
The judge wrote:
[T]he individual Defendants were charged over a year prior to when the Superseding Indictment against SGO was returned; for years prior to the initiation of this case and up until the Superseding Indictment was returned, SGO was cooperating with the Government; the Government charged SGO amidst a public shift away from charging defendants for similar FCPA violations; SGO brought suit against the President's confederates prior to being charged; and the President has expressed at least some degree of animus towards SGO. "It may well be that no fire will be discovered under all the smoke, but there is enough smoke here … to warrant the unusual step of … find[ing] out how this unusual prosecution came about."
Smartmatic had emphasized that the Biden administration itself "chose not to prosecute" the company in 2024.