Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Judge Chutkan Keeps Open Possibility Of Public Seeing Jack Smith’s Evidence Against Trump Before Election

(Screen Capture/CSPAN)

A redacted version of a major filing special counsel Jack Smith made in his case against former President Donald Trump may become public in the weeks before the election.

Smith filed a motion under seal on Thursday making the argument that his superseding indictment against Trump in the election interference case is not covered by presidential immunity, which includes evidence previously unseen by the public. Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered Trump’s attorneys on Friday to raise any objections they have to redactions prosecutors intend to include on the public filing by Oct. 1 and any objections to its appendix by Oct. 10.

Prosecutors’ proposed public filing does not redact “quotations or summaries of information from Sensitive Materials,” they wrote Friday. However, it would redact citations in the footnotes that reveal “the non-public sources of such information, including grand jury transcripts, interview reports, or material obtained through sealed search warrants.”

The appendix would redact “non-public Sensitive Materials in their entirety,” prosecutors wrote.

“The Government also has proposed limited redactions to some publicly-available materials, such as the defendant’s Tweets, when such material identifies or targets an individual who—because of their status as a potential witness or involvement in underlying events—may be susceptible to threats or harassment, or may otherwise suffer a chilling effect on their trial testimony,” prosecutors wrote.

Trump’s attorneys tried to prevent Smith from filing the document from the start, telling Chutkan it contradicted typical procedure and would “drive public opinion rather than justice.” But Chutkan approved of the government’s proposal, allowing prosecutors to file the first brief on the issue.

The Supreme Court held in July that former presidents are immune from prosecution for official acts taken in office. While the majority explicitly found certain conduct was immune from prosecution, they left lower courts to sort out how immunity applies to other allegations against Trump.

In an effort to address the ruling, prosecutors filed a superseding indictment in August that highlighted the personal nature of Trump’s actions and removed specific allegations the majority found were covered by presidential immunity, such as his conversations with Department of Justice (DOJ) officials.