Former President Donald Trump asked a judge on Tuesday to order special counsel Jack Smith to redact more of his highly anticipated presidential immunity brief before it becomes public.
Trump’s attorneys argued to Judge Tanya Chutkan that prosecutors for Smith did not redact information in their latest court filing the way they have done with other filings, saying the “largely unexplained about-face on materials” was driven by politics.
“The true motivation driving the efforts by the Special Counsel’s Office to disseminate witness statements that they previously sought to lock down is as obvious as it is inappropriate,” Trump’s attorneys wrote.
The defense attorneys accused prosecutors of wanting “their politically motivated manifesto to be public” in the final month of the 2024 election, in which Trump is the Republican presidential candidate.
Prosecutors have previewed in court papers that the immunity filing, which remains under seal, contains a wealth of evidence to support their criminal charges against Trump related to the 2020 election.
The Supreme Court ruled in a landmark decision over the summer that presidents enjoy some immunity from criminal prosecution. The high court ordered Chutkan to reexamine Smith’s charges against Trump and determine which conduct in Smith’s indictment was protected by presidential immunity based on the Supreme Court’s new definition of it.
In response, Chutkan granted a request from Smith that he be allowed to submit a sweeping argument to the court explaining why his charges against Trump are not subject to immunity.
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Smith previewed that the document would be about four times the size of a typical court motion and would contain never-before-seen evidence against Trump in the form of FBI interview notes, grand jury transcripts, and more.
Trump’s attorneys opposed this process, arguing that it was the wrong first step to take in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling. It would merely allow Smith to “litter” the court docket with unnecessary material prematurely when Trump’s attorneys expect to succeed in getting the case tossed out entirely anyway, the attorneys argued.
Smith’s court filing is expected to spotlight Trump’s most unflattering moments surrounding the 2020 election during crucial weeks of his 2024 campaign, but Chutkan has discretion over unsealing it, and when she will do so remains unclear.
Smith filed two versions of the immunity document, which he called a “motion for immunity determination,” under seal last week. One version will remain sealed and unredacted, while the other version has information blocked out and is intended for public viewing.
Trump’s attorneys, who had an opportunity to review the redacted version before Chutkan unsealed it, said it is a “sprawling brief” that flies in the face of Smith’s long-held “safety and privacy interests” regarding witnesses.
Smith’s redactions do not “meaningfully mitigate” these privacy concerns, Trump’s attorneys said, noting how Smith was previously deeply concerned with threats that people involved in Trump’s case could face if they were named publicly.
“Now that public disclosure serves their politically motivated mission, the Special Counsel’s Office takes a different view,” Trump’s attorneys argued.
They also downplayed the document’s contents, saying it contained “few, if any, new allegations.”
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Prosecutors said last week they looked to court precedent when deciding what to block from public view.
“With these guideposts in mind — and with the simultaneous goals of providing the Court with a detailed factual proffer; protecting Sensitive Materials and the witnesses whose accounts support that proffer; and allowing an appropriate degree of public access — the Government has proposed redacted versions of its sealed Motion and sealed Appendix for filing on the public docket,” prosecutors wrote.