The federal judge presiding over Donald Trump’s election subversion case released a heavily redacted trove of evidence on Friday used by Special Counsel Jack Smith to bring charges against the former US president.
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Hundreds of the 1,889 pages were blank, marked “sealed”, and the bulk of the visible material – social media posts by Trump, transcripts and memos – had already been publicly disclosed previously.
District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected a request by Trump’s lawyers to keep the documents under wraps until November 14 – nine days after the US presidential election in which Trump is once again the Republican candidate.
In arguing against the release of the material, Trump’s lawyers said it could present a “concerning appearance of election interference” and taint the jury pool.
Chutkan said that while there is “undoubtedly a public interest in courts not inserting themselves into elections”, withholding the documents could also be construed as election interference.
“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,” she said.
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