OAN Staff Abril Elfi
9:00 AM – Saturday, October 19, 2024
The judge overseeing former President Donald Trump’s federal election interference case has ordered for more documents from special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation on Trump to be made public.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered that the additional documents in the case be revealed.
The documents are part of the exhibit appendix in the legal dispute over whether Trump is immune enough from prosecution to avoid the charges against him.
The judge wrote in the order Trump’s claim that the “asymmetric release of charged allegations and related documents during early voting creates a concerning appearance of election interference.”
While the public interest in courts staying out of elections exists, Chutkan says that “it is in fact Defendant’s requested relief that risks undermining that public interest.”
“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 argued.
She also stated that, in spite of the defense’s request, the court would continue to make decisions without taking politics into account.
“Any argument about ‘what needs to happen before or shouldn’t happen before the election is not relevant here,'” Chutkan wrote.
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