Judge Tanya Chutkan gives Trump deadline to object to unsealing Jan. 6 evidence
Judge Tanya Chutkan on Friday gave former President Trump until Tuesday to file any objection to her unsealing a dossier of evidence from special counsel Jack Smith in the federal Jan. 6 election interference case.
In an electronic order, Chutkan gave Trump’s defense team the Oct. 1 deadline to counter Smith’s claim that the public should get to see the 180-page document dump in which prosecutors make the case that Trump’s alleged misdeeds were not covered by the Supreme Court’s decision to grant him significant immunity.
The Washington D.C. district court judge gave no hint as to when she might rule on the dispute or when the Smith filing might be made public if she sides with the government.
Chutkan gave Trump a longer lead time till Oct. 10 to object to unsealing a lengthy appendix of documents Smith’s team attached to the filing.
With a criminal trial postponed indefinitely, a public filing would likely be the final chance before Election Day for voters to assess so-far secret evidence of Trump’s effort to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.
Smith says the public has a right to see as many facts as possible about Trump’s scheme, including efforts to bully then-Vice President Mike Pence into going along with the so-called Stop the Steal plot to keep them in power.
Trump says it’s all part of a Democratic-inspired witch hunt designed to smear his good name and prevent him from winning another term in the White House.
The conservative Supreme Court handed Trump a major victory in July when it ruled that he enjoys immunity for crimes committed in the course of his official actions as president.
Smith later obtained a streamlined new indictment that stresses the alleged crimes were private acts committed by Trump in his capacity as a candidate for reelection.
Trump is already a convicted felon and is awaiting sentencing after Election Day in the Manhattan case in which a jury convicted him of paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election that he won.
