Judge in Trump's Jan. 6 case rules additional evidence will be unsealed Friday
The judge overseeing Donald Trump's federal election interference case, in an order late Thursday, denied the former president's last-minute request to block the release of additional evidence gathered by special counsel Jack Smith.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan said that the court will unseal, on Friday, the redacted appendix from the immunity motion filed earlier this month by Smith that included new details about Trump and his allies' actions leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.
In ruling that the evidence would be publicly released, Chutkan pushed back on Trump's argument that the release was politically motivated to influence the 2024 presidential election.
"There is undoubtedly a public interest in courts not inserting themselves into elections, or appearing to do so. But litigation's incidental effects on politics are not the same as a court's intentional interference with them," Chutkan wrote in her order. "As a result, it is in fact Defendant's requested relief that risks undermining that public interest: If the court withheld information that the public otherwise had a right to access solely because of the potential political consequences of releasing it, that withholding could itself constitute -- or appear to be -- election interference."
Chutkan faulted Trump's lawyers for peddling what she called political arguments rather than engaging with the relevant factors to justify sealing the evidence in the case.
"Accordingly, the court has repeatedly stressed that 'Defendant's concern with the political consequences of these proceedings does not bear on the pretrial schedule,'" Chutkan wrote.
Trump's attorneys, in a court filing Thursday morning, had requested that Chutkan delay the release of the appendix until Nov. 14 -- after the presidential election -- when Trump's own reply brief appendix is due.
"Here, President Trump requests only that the Court briefly continue its existing stay of the Order, such that the redacted versions of the SC Appendix and President Trump's forthcoming appendix may be released concurrently," their filing said. "Although this stay will not eliminate the harms President Trump identified in his prior opposition filings, certain harms will be mitigated. For example, if the Court immediately releases the Special Counsel's cherry-picked documents, potential jurors will be left with a skewed, one-sided, and inaccurate picture of this case."
"If the appendices are released simultaneously, at least some press outlets will attempt to report both sides of this case, reducing (although, again, not eliminating) the potential for irreversible prejudice," the filing said.
Trump last year pleaded not guilty to federal charges of undertaking a "criminal scheme" to overturn the results of the 2020 election in order to remain in power.
Smith subsequently charged Trump in a superseding indictment that was adjusted to respect the Supreme Court's July ruling that Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken as president.
