Donald Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday sought to limit the amount of evidence that could become public, collected during the special counsel’s criminal investigation into the former US president’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results. made a final effort.
Last week, prosecutors sealed and sent to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan a potentially 180-page brief defending the viability of charges against Trump even after the U.S. Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. Submitted.
At the same time, prosecutors asked the judge for permission to release a public version of a confidential briefing document that includes quotes and references to grand jury testimony by Trump’s top aides, including his former chief of staff and former Vice President Mike. Pence.
To protect the integrity of the proceedings and protect lesser-known witnesses, prosecutors redact certain names in public filings and use job titles to give context to information referenced. He said he intended to do so.
The types of identifying information prosecutors are proposing include “Campaign Manager,” “Governor of Arizona,” “Senior Campaign Counsel,” “Executive Assistant,” and “Defendant’s Chief of Staff,” according to the filing. , “Attorney General of the State of Georgia,” and “Attorney General of the State of Georgia.” “Republican National Committee Chairman.”
Trump’s lawyers on Tuesday complained bitterly that the redactions were so specific that they would make it easier for witnesses to be publicly identified, and prosecutors said Trump’s presidential campaign with less than five weeks until Election Day He accused them of trying to damage the movement.
“In many cases, the redactions and pseudonyms proposed by the Office of the Special Counsel may not meaningfully alleviate the privacy and security issues that the Office of the Special Counsel cited in its motion and previously discussed at length. We have not been able to do so,” the Trump lawyers wrote.
Trump’s lawyers also argued that prosecutors were employing a double standard over the redactions. In a lawsuit filed against Trump in Florida over the preservation of classified documents, which has since been dismissed, prosecutors asked that no identifying information be disclosed.
“The use of functionally ineffective redactions is consistent with the agency’s approach in other filings in the Southern District of Florida and the Southern District of Florida, which sought to anonymize even ‘auxiliary names’ based on privacy concerns. Completely contradictory,” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
The situation reflects a reversal of the roles of President Trump and the special counsel. At a time when it would have been more convenient for President Trump to identify witnesses to the document case and complain about the case in public, Trump called for looser redactions.
But now it is against President Trump’s interests to release the identities of former officials who testified against him, making it even more difficult for the public to monitor his plot to overturn the 2020 election. , asking for more limited editing.
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The special counsel’s motion and President Trump’s objections come after the Supreme Court granted former presidents broad immunity from criminal prosecution for actions related to their official duties while in office. be.
As part of the ruling, the court’s conservative majority ordered Chutkan to review the indictment and decide which of the allegations against Trump should be thrown out under immunity rules and which should be kept and proceed to trial. commanded.
The special counsel’s opening brief was the first step in a process that could take months to resolve and may require hearings to determine which motions should be put on hold. Much of the evidence Smith uses to prove his case comes from confidential sources such as grand jury testimony, which is confidential.
Mr. Chutkan has the power to decide how much of the indictment to preserve and how much of the special counsel’s evidence to make decisions, but much of the evidence dates back to January 6, two years ago. It became public knowledge during a House committee hearing on .
