Raw Story⁠93%

DOJ scrambles after accidentally releasing sealed Jack Smith report on Trump ⁠23%

By David Edwards⁠0%

7/2/2026, 8:59:10 AM

BS Summary: This article contains 17 faulty reasoning types, including Unattributed Quote, Confirmation Bias, and Framing Effect, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 33.6% saturation with 117 hits. Analysis detected 799 faulty-reasoning hits from 348 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 35.8% and a BS Rank of ⁠23% (17,054 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 77.90% of the article peer group.

The Justice Department accidentally released former special counsel Jack Smith's sealed report on President Donald Trump to lawyers for the former prosecutor accused of stealing it. 
Volume II includes Jack Smith's evidence in his case to prove Trump mishandled classified documents after leaving office — the report Trump has fought to keep secret. 
U.S. 
District Judge Aileen Cannon, the Trump-appointed judge who dismissed the underlying case, has barred the Justice Department from releasing it outside the department. 
Carmen Mercedes Lineberger, a former Fort Pierce federal prosecutor, is charged with emailing herself a copy of Volume II disguised as a cake recipe. 
On Thursday, the Justice Department did damage control after mistakenly sending a copy to her defense lawyers. 
The Justice Department transmission to Lineberger's lawyers included flash drives sent on June 3, per a joint notice filed with Cannon. 
Six days later, her lawyers found Volume II embedded in the files. 
"Upon review, the Government confirmed the documents in question were copies of the Volume II Report that were embedded within electronic messages required to be produced in discovery," the filing said. 
"Defense counsel voluntarily ceased review of the discovery material, affirmed they had not examined the documents in question, deleted all discovery materials already downloaded to their server, and cooperated with the Government's efforts to recover the flash drives that same day," the notice added. 
"The Government acknowledges the professionalism and candor of defense counsel in remedying this inadvertent inclusion." 
Cannon sealed the report in February, writing that Trump "still enjoy[s] the presumption of innocence" because his charges were dismissed without a guilty verdict. 
She cited Jack Smith's "brazen stratagem" in compiling the report after she had already thrown out the case. 
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche — Trump's former personal defense attorney in the very classified documents case Volume II describes — now runs the DOJ that filed Thursday's notice. 
Senate Democrats have warned that having Trump's former lawyers on both sides of Volume II decisions raises serious conflict-of-interest concerns. 
Lineberger has pleaded not guilty. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 25.3%David Edwards: 3.3%Rawstory: 8.4%Confirmation Bias25.3%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.8%Anchoring Bias0.0%This article: 7.5%David Edwards: 4.1%Rawstory: 4.5%Availability Heuristic7.5%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 1.3%Rawstory: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 1.0%Rawstory: 1.0%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.6%Rawstory: 2.2%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 23.9%David Edwards: 17.9%Rawstory: 13.4%Framing Effect23.9%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.4%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.4%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.4%Rawstory: 0.7%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.8%Rawstory: 2.9%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 33.6%David Edwards: 17.8%Rawstory: 21.6%Negativity Bias33.6%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.6%Rawstory: 1.2%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 14.9%David Edwards: 1.8%Rawstory: 2.8%Fundamental Attribution Error14.9%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 5.7%David Edwards: 1.4%Rawstory: 2.5%In-Group Bias5.7%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 1.6%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 4.3%David Edwards: 0.5%Rawstory: 0.6%Halo Effect4.3%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.9%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 3.4%David Edwards: 0.4%Rawstory: 1.8%Recency Bias3.4%This article: 6.9%David Edwards: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.7%Primacy Effect6.9%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 5.2%David Edwards: 3.5%Rawstory: 6.3%Ad Hominem5.2%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.7%Straw Man0.0%This article: 6.9%David Edwards: 5.9%Rawstory: 4.1%Appeal to Authority6.9%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.9%Rawstory: 3.0%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 1.5%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 1.1%Rawstory: 12.1%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 1.0%Rawstory: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.8%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 13.5%David Edwards: 4.8%Rawstory: 9.2%Appeal to Emotion13.5%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 1.6%Rawstory: 1.6%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 3.8%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.6%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 5.7%David Edwards: 0.7%Rawstory: 1.7%Burden of Proof5.7%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.5%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 6.9%David Edwards: 0.8%Rawstory: 3.9%Anecdotal6.9%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.3%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 2.4%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 1.0%Rawstory: 0.2%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.8%Rawstory: 0.1%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 1.0%Rawstory: 0.4%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 32.8%David Edwards: 4.5%Rawstory: 5.3%Unattributed Quote32.8%This article: 18.4%David Edwards: 5.1%Rawstory: 4.1%Quote-first Misdirection18.4%This article: 14.7%David Edwards: 20.3%Rawstory: 15.7%Biased Writer Voice14.7%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 3.2%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 2.0%Rawstory: 8.0%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 1.0%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%David Edwards: 0.0%Rawstory: 0.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

348 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers24%attributed speech263writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 11 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 26 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 27 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 1 words • 0.0% coverageAileen Cannon • 23 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 24 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 21 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 44 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 100.0% coverageAileen Cannon • 24 words • 100.0% coverageAileen Cannon • 18 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 29 words • 0.0% coverageSenate Democrats • 20 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 5 words • 0.0% coverage
Selected voice

Senate Democrats

100%flagged-word coverage
20 attributed words24% of attributed speech92% writer coverage
0%17.5%35.0%Unattributed Quote-34.2 ptsWriter: 34.2%Senate Democrats: 0.0%0.0%Quote-first Misdirection-17.5 ptsWriter: 17.5%Senate Democrats: 0.0%0.0%Biased Writer Voice-10.6 ptsWriter: 10.6%Senate Democrats: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.