District of Columbia Judge Tanya Chutkan released a redacted version of the appendix to special counsel Jack Smith’s immunity motion on Oct. 18, offering more insight into the evidence undergirding his prosecution of former President Donald Trump.
So far, the tranche of released evidence consists of three volumes and nearly 2,000 pages.
Large portions of Volume IV have been redacted or marked as “sealed.” The volume includes a lot of publicly available information such as archived webpages from the White House and emails from the Trump–Pence campaign.
Other documents show budget and trip details. Another section contains a redacted version of the special counsel’s report on former White House adviser Peter Navarro’s alleged violation of the Hatch Act.
It came after weeks of dispute over redactions and timing. Chutkan had authorized its release with an Oct. 10 order but delayed the effects of the release for seven days. Trump’s attorneys responded on Oct. 17 with a request to delay the release through Nov. 14, after the presidential election.
The filing containing the request argued that Chutkan should concurrently release both Smith’s and Trump’s evidence appendices. Trump is expected to file his own lengthy immunity brief on Nov. 7. His initial motion to dismiss based on presidential immunity prompted Supreme Court intervention and a subsequent ruling in July that led to Smith filing a superseding indictment.
Smith’s immunity motion, filed on Oct. 2, represents an attempt to claim that the superseding indictment’s allegations don’t fall under any of the immune categories of behavior set up by the Supreme Court’s decision in July.
That decision led to the pre-trial process eventually restarting after months of delay as Trump’s immunity motion made its way through the appellate process.
On Oct. 16, Chutkan also ruled on Trump’s motion to compel various forms of discovery from the prosecution—denying most of the categories of evidence he requested.
Timing Before Election
Chutkan said in her order on Oct. 17 that if she followed Trump’s request to delay the release of Smith’s appendix, she would be engaging in a form of 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 in her five-page order.
“The court will therefore continue to keep political considerations out of its decision-making, rather than incorporating them as Defendant requests.”
It’s unclear how the evidence in Smith’s immunity motion and appendix will impact voters, if at all. Smith has offered copious details of communications among Trump, White House staff, and his campaign around the time of the 2020 presidential election.
Trump, meanwhile, described Smith’s motion as “falsehood-ridden” and alleged the Justice Department violated its policy on avoiding actions that could influence an election.
Trump’s attorneys sought a concurrent release of their appendices to offer a “balanced” picture to voters.
Chutkan rejected this argument, stating on Oct. 17: “Setting aside the oxymoronic proposition that the public’s understanding of this case will be enhanced by withholding information about it, any public debate about the issues in this case has no bearing on the court’s resolution of those issues.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated.
From The Epoch Times