FBI Senior Computer Scientist David Loveall II’s rebuttal report — defective at the basic level.

A point-by-point breakdown of the DOJ’s sole forensic rebuttal to the seven-expert findings of evidence fabrication and planting — the report Judge Garaufis relied on to deny an evidentiary hearing.

1. Who Loveall is.

   FBI Senior Computer Scientist out of Quantico. Recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers for his contributions to digital forensics, the FBI Director’s Award for Outstanding Technical Advancement, and the Intelligence Community Seal Medallion.

   He is not a forensic examiner routinely assigned to prosecutions. Over a four-year span, the only other case in which Loveall was brought in for testimonial evidence was Jack Smith’s Mar-a-Lago prosecution of President Trump.

   

2. The DOJ brought him in to rebut the seven post-conviction experts.

   On July 21, 2023, the DOJ brought Loveall in to respond to the findings of seven post-conviction experts (four former FBI examiners) that the camera’s memory card and an external hard drive had been falsified. Loveall produced a report denying the findings.

3. The report contained no proof.

   Under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, expert testimony must be based on sufficient facts or data. Loveall’s rebuttals contain technical language but no proof — only hypotheticals presented as findings. His own diagrams are illustrations he created, not proof.

   A forensic report without underlying proof is not admissible expert opinion — it is assertion.

4. Loveall’s rebuttal to the “37 additional files” finding — defects on display.

   The seven experts found that 37 files appeared on a second, undisclosed forensic copy of the memory card — indicating either planting in FBI custody between the first and second copy, or omission from the first copy’s report. They concluded at least 28 of those files had been tampered with and at least 20 had been planted.

   Loveall’s full rebuttal:

   

   What’s missing:

   • He says the “additional files” came from “different settings” in the reporting software — but doesn’t specify which settings, or provide any proof.
   • He says he determined the disk images are “identical” — but how? What test? Where’s the proof? The standard check here is simple: a hash value (digital fingerprint) — the exact test Jack Smith called him to testify about in the Mar-a-Lago case. He provided no hash values here.
   • He identifies the evidence as “1B15 and 1B15a” — but those are the wrong items. 1B15 is the camera. 1B15a is the camera’s memory card. Saying a copy of the camera is “identical” to a copy of the memory card is as nonsensical as saying a copy of a DVD player is identical to the DVD inside it.
5. The FBI’s own examiner testified at trial about the hash standard.

   The government’s own examiner, Brian Booth, testified that the FBI uses hash verification on every case: “Message Digest 5, called the MD5 verification” — if “anything gets changed on a hard drive… this whole function… would be different and we know something has been changed.”

   

   

6. The report contains no date.

   Not on the cover. Not in the body. Not anywhere. 28 U.S.C. § 1746 requires a date to legally bind a declarant to the penalty of perjury. Without a date, the declaration has no legal force — the expert is not bound by his own findings.

   

   

   Loveall report, Doc. 1213-3 (PDF) →

7. The only testing the report claims was on a computer model that does not exist.

   Loveall’s only claimed independent testing was on “a Dell Dimension 8300-20090330” — a computer he says he procured to test the opposing expert’s claim. No such Dell model exists. The “20090330” suffix is a date code (March 30, 2009) lifted from a folder name in the case evidence — not part of any real Dell hardware identifier. Either the testing never happened, or the report’s most basic factual claim about its own methodology cannot be verified.

   

8. Two independent debunkings.
   • Joint Expert Debunking of the Loveall Report (Doc. 1273-7) — seven post-conviction forensic experts (four former FBI), point-by-point.
   • Retired FBI ASAC Mark Bowling’s analysis — concluded the report was “structured to be intentionally deceptive.”