Trump’s Lawyers Scramble to Stop Jack Smith Releasing More Evidence
Hundreds of pages of evidence in Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case are set to be unsealed Friday, and it has the former president shaking in his boots. Judge Tanya Chutkan denied Trump’s request Thursday to delay the unsealing until after the presidential election, and said that the court documents containing evidence submitted by the government would be docketed publicly the next day. Trump’s legal team had argued that “the asymmetric release of charged allegations and related documents during early voting creates a concerning appearance of election interference,” and pushed for the unsealing to be postponed.But Chutkan didn’t seem particularly swayed by that argument. “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 wrote in her filing Thursday. NBC’s legal analyst Lisa Rubin remarked on Morning Joe that Trump’s team seemed particularly desperate in their scrambled efforts to prevent the release of the evidence.“They got their ruling last Thursday, they asked for more time to evaluate their litigation options. Then they waited until the eleventh hour instead of getting a ruling from the appeals court, which they didn’t have the ability to do,” Rubin said. “Why are they fighting so hard if what we’re about to see isn’t really all that surprising? There’s probably something in there that they don’t want the voting public to know about or see in a more fulsome way,” she added.By Friday morning, Chutkan ordered that the clerk of courts file special counsel Jack Smith’s Redacted Appendix (of exhibits to his immunity determination motion) of Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, and Volume IV.
Hundreds of pages of evidence in Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case are set to be unsealed Friday, and it has the former president shaking in his boots.
Judge Tanya Chutkan denied Trump’s request Thursday to delay the unsealing until after the presidential election, and said that the court documents containing evidence submitted by the government would be docketed publicly the next day.
Trump’s legal team had argued that “the asymmetric release of charged allegations and related documents during early voting creates a concerning appearance of election interference,” and pushed for the unsealing to be postponed.
But Chutkan didn’t seem particularly swayed by that argument.
“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 wrote in her filing Thursday.
NBC’s legal analyst Lisa Rubin remarked on Morning Joe that Trump’s team seemed particularly desperate in their scrambled efforts to prevent the release of the evidence.
“They got their ruling last Thursday, they asked for more time to evaluate their litigation options. Then they waited until the eleventh hour instead of getting a ruling from the appeals court, which they didn’t have the ability to do,” Rubin said.
“Why are they fighting so hard if what we’re about to see isn’t really all that surprising? There’s probably something in there that they don’t want the voting public to know about or see in a more fulsome way,” she added.
By Friday morning, Chutkan ordered that the clerk of courts file special counsel Jack Smith’s Redacted Appendix (of exhibits to his immunity determination motion) of Volume I, Volume II, Volume III, and Volume IV.
