1 of 4 | A federal judge has agreed to release hundreds of documents related to the investigation into former president Donald Trump’s attempts to circumvent the 2020 election. Photo by Archie Carpenter/UPI. |
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Oct. 18 (UPI) -- A federal judge has agreed to release hundreds of documents related to the investigation into former president Donald Trump's attempts to circumvent the 2020 election.
The release came after a decision by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan late Thursday to deny the request of Trump's lawyers earlier in the week to keep the documents sealed until Nov. 14, after the U.S. election.
Many of the approximately 1,800 documents released Friday morning in four separate appendices are heavily or even entirely redacted and do not contain much in the way of new information about the case.
Trump is facing federal charges related to what Special Counsel Jack Smith has called a "criminal scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election."
The former president had long claimed presidential immunity prohibited him from being prosecuted in the matter.
The U.S. Supreme Court took up the case, issuing a decision in July partly affirming arguments made by Trump's legal team and issuing 10 pages of guidance for lower courts.
Smith then filed a new, superseding indictment to conform to the new guidelines.
Trump and his lawyers have argued releasing any information ahead of voting day on Nov. 5 could amount to election interference, saying it was "essential that the public fully understand the arguments and documents on both sides of this momentous issue and is not misled by one-sided submissions."
Lawyers have also argued it could taint any potential jury members down the road.
"There should be no further disclosures at this time of the so-called 'evidence' that the Special Counsel's Office has unlawfully cherry-picked and mischaracterized -- during early voting in the 2024 Presidential election - in connection with an improper Presidential immunity filing that has no basis in criminal procedure or judicial precedent," Trump's lawyers wrote in a court filing.
Chutkan addressed the concerns in her ruling late Thursday.
"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," the judge wrote.