WASHINGTON — The judge supervises Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case A heavily redacted trove of documents was made public Friday that offer a small glimpse into the evidence prosecutors will present if the case ever goes to trial.
The nearly 1,900 pages of documents collected by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team were initially kept under seal to help U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan decide which charges can go to trial after trial. Supreme Court Opinion in July, it granted broad immunity to former presidents for official actions taken while in office.
The information seen in the redacted version released Friday appeared to be material that had, for the most part, already been made public, including screenshots of Trump’s social media posts about the 2020 election and a transcript of the video statement that he laid down on it. January 6, 2021 in which he told the rioters who attacked the Capitol to go home, but added: “we love you” and “you are very special.”
The vast majority of the pages released Friday were white. The redacted files are believed to include transcripts of grand jury testimony, which remain secret due to grand jury confidentiality rules.
Other publicly visible information includes passages from former Vice President Mike Pence’s book, excerpts of testimony from various witnesses the House committee investigating the January 6 riot and a transcript of Trump’s phone call in which he pressured election officials in Georgia to “find” enough votes to overturn his election loss in the state to Democrat Joe Biden.
Other documents include fundraising emails from Trump’s 2020 campaign and Pence’s letter telling Congress on Jan. 6 that he could not claim “unilateral authority to determine which electoral votes should be counted and which should not.”
The filing was submitted as a series of appendices to a 165-page letter was unsealed this month in which prosecutors revealed new evidence against Trump to support their argument that the former president is not entitled to immunity from prosecution.
Trump’s lawyers objected to the disclosure of the files so close to next month’s presidential election, but Chutkan on Thursday rejected their bid to delay the material until it became public after the election. She said it would be inappropriate to take the political calendar into account.