Eric Trump is using a series of right-wing media appearances to baselessly accuse former special counsel Jack Smith of “planting” evidence that the FBI uncovered during its search of President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort and residence.

MAGA figures have baselessly accused the FBI of planting evidence since the agency executed its warrant in August 2022. But Eric Trump’s version of the conspiracy theory introduces a glaring new flaw: Smith was prosecuting war crimes overseas at the time of that search and didn’t take over the federal probe of the then-former president’s handling of classified documents until more than three months later.

Trump, who is overseeing his father’s business holdings alongside his brother, Don Jr., theoretically holds no position in the administration. But he has been on a tour of right-wing media in recent days making the case that the politically motivated indictments of Trump enemies are justified and promoting his new memoir, which positions the Mar-a-Lago search as proof that “America itself was under siege.”

The FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago on August 8, 2022, after developing evidence countering a Trump lawyer’s statement that all classified documents that had been stored on the premises were turned over in response to a subpoena. The agents reportedly “left with 26 boxes, including 11 sets of material marked as classified, comprising scores of additional documents. One set had the highest level of classification, top secret/sensitive compartmented information.” Trump ultimately faced 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information, among other federal charges, but the case was dismissed by a Trump-appointed judge.  

Trumpists have proposed two different versions of a baseless theory that the FBI had “planted” evidence. First, Trump and his right-wing media allies suggested immediately after the search that the FBI might have brought classified documents to Mar-a-Lago to frame Trump for possessing them improperly (a judge ultimately protected him from having to try to prove the charge in court). Then, after the Justice Department included a photo of documents with classification markings seized in that search in an August 30, 2022, filing, Trump’s supporters suggested that it was somehow improper for agents to take the documents out of the boxes in which they were stored and lay them on the floor so that the folders with classified markings could be seen in the photos. (Classified documents were reportedly found at Mar-A-Lago in locations including “a shower, an office, a bedroom and a ballroom.”)

Eric Trump, in three separate interviews with right-wing media figures, seemed to toggle between which interpretation he was trying to get across — but in either case, he specifically blamed Smith.

“These are the biggest criminals in the world, back to Jack Smith — he was planting classified folders on my father’s office at Mar-a-Lago,” he told Steve Bannon on October 7. 

“And then in the aftermath, we find out that Jack Smith was planting classified folders, you know, on the carpet,” he said to Megyn Kelly on October 10. “You remember those perfectly orchestrated photo shoots where everything's fanned out? Like my father just leaves classified folders just perfectly fanned out on a beautiful carpet in the middle of his office.”

“Jack Smith, he dug so deep that we found out that he was actually planting classified folders in Mar-a-Lago,” he told Fox News’ Sean Hannity on October 14.

Whichever argument Eric Trump is trying to make, his specific claim that Smith “was planting classified folders” during the August 8, 2022, search, is obviously and absurdly false. Smith did not become special counsel and take over the classified documents case until November 22, 2022. At the time of the Mar-a-Lago search, he was working in the Netherlands as chief prosecutor for a special court investigating war crimes stemming from the 1990s war in Kosovo.  

But as we’ve seen over the past few weeks, Republicans are unconcerned with how thin the allegations are as long as they can be used to target their political foes — and Smith is clearly one such target.