admissibility

Staff working on the report include a military expert, as well as experts on the use and admissibility of digital evidence.

It focuses particularly on the admissibility of the Pence evidence under the Supreme Court’s expansive immunity opinion, which gives the president a wide berth to engage in otherwise illegal conduct.

Appeal court decisions in England had upheld the admissibility of Encrochat evidence and it was not challenged in the high court in Glasgow, where Stevenson and his colleagues eventually pleaded guilty.

But, Bader said, "there was a lot of the evidence that came in was probably more prejudicial than probative, which is the standard for admissibility."

The judge, if forced to respond to those challenges, he added, has the power to impose sanctions and limits on the admissibility of evidence during trial, which "only hurts" the client.