This story was originally published by the WND News Center.

Jack Smith was a private lawyer hand-picked by Joe Biden's attorney general, Merrick Garland, to run a couple of the Democrats' lawfare cases against President Trump, one over Trump's thoughts on the 2020 election and another on papers he held from his presidency.

Both cases were killed by the Department of Justice when Trump was elected, but they're not over.

It's because of suspicions that Smith colluded with prosecutors including Atlanta's Fani Willis, who ran another lawfare campaign against Trump, a claim he was involved in organized crime around the 2020 election.

She's already been ordered to produce for government watchdog Judicial Watch her communications with Smith – and to pay Judicial Watch some $20,000 for refusing to comply with the legal requirements, and now a judge has ordered that Smith's communications also will be available for review.

The Washington Examiner said U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich has ordered the DOJ to turn over communications between Smith and Willis, "in what a legal watchdog group has called a case of collusion."

Smith resigned from his special counsel position before Trump, who had promised to fire him immediately, took office. And many of those career lawyers who worked on cases against Trump have been dismissed.

Judicial Watch sought the communications in a Freedom of Information Act action, but Smith and the DOJ claimed that releasing the information would hurt the prosecution of the case.

Now, the judge said, there's no prosecution and no case so the information can be turned over.

"Since DOJ filed its motion for summary judgment and supporting Declaration in March 2024, the Special Counsel's criminal enforcement actions have been terminated…. The cases are 'closed — not pending or contemplated — and therefore are not proceedings with which disclosure may interfere.' … Thus, the agency's sole justification for invoking the Glomar doctrine under Exemption 7(A) is no longer applicable," the judge said.

"Accordingly, the court will deny DOJ's motion for summary judgment and grant the plaintiff's cross motion. DOJ is directed to process the plaintiff's FOIA request and either 'disclose any [responsive] records or establish both that their contents are exempt from disclosure and that such exemption has not also been waived.'"

The Glomar doctrine concerns when prosecutors claim that just revealing the existence of records, or their absence, could impact a pending case.

Judicial Watch is questioning whether Willis asked for or got "federal funds or other federal assistance in any form relating to the investigation" of Trump.

Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch chief, said, "President Trump truly needs to overhaul the Justice Department from top to bottom. It is a scandal that a federal court had to order the Justice Department to admit the truth that their objections to producing records about collusion with Fani Willis had no basis in reality."