World News | Judge Chutkan Largely Sides with Defence on Protective Order in Trump Election Case
Get latest articles and stories on World at LatestLY. The federal judge overseeing the election conspiracy case against Donald Trump largely sided with his defence Friday in a dispute over a protective order and said she was inclined to agree to less restrictive rules than were sought by prosecutors around the public disclosure of government evidence.
Washington, Aug 11 (AP) The federal judge overseeing the election conspiracy case against Donald Trump largely sided with his defence Friday in a dispute over a protective order and said she was inclined to agree to less restrictive rules than were sought by prosecutors around the public disclosure of government evidence.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington rejected prosecutors' broader protective order proposal that sought to prevent the public airing of all evidence they hand over to Trump's defence as they prepare for trial.
She instead seemed poised to impose a more limited protective order that would bar the public release only of materials deemed “sensitive,” such as grand jury materials.
She did, however, block other defence requests to broaden the scope of who can see discovery and what should be considered sensitive.
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The government considers the vast majority of evidence in the case to be sensitive.
The protective order sought by special counsel Jack Smith's team has become an early flashpoint in the case accusing the Republican of illegally scheming to subvert the will of voters and cling to power after he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
At the start of Friday's hearing, US District Judge Tanya Chutkan said she is prepared to rule immediately on some of the defence's proposed revisions and plans to issue a protective order “as quickly as possible” after the hearing.
Protective orders aren't unusual in criminal cases, and they're different from “gag orders" that bar parties from talking publicly about an ongoing case outside the courtroom.
But lawyers for Trump — who has railed against prosecutors and Chutkan on social media and during campaign events — say the proposed protective order goes too far and would restrict Trump's free speech rights.
In seeking the protective order, prosecutors pointed to a post on Trump's Truth Social social media platform in which the former president promised he would be “coming after” those who “go after” him.
Prosecutors expressed concern that Trump might share secret grand jury information that could have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses.”
“Mr. Trump, like every American, has a First Amendment right to free speech, but that right is not absolute,” Chutkan said.
The hearing in Washington's federal court is the first time the lawyers appear before Chutkan, an appointee of President Barack Obama who has a reputation for being one of the toughest punishers of defendants charged in the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Trump is not expected to attend the hearing.
He pleaded not guilty last week before a magistrate judge to charges including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstructing Congress' certification of Biden's electoral victory.
The protective order would set rules on what Trump and his defence team can do with evidence handed over by prosecutors. Prosecutors' proposal seeks to prevent Trump and his lawyers from disclosing those materials to anyone other than people on his legal team, possible witnesses, the witnesses' lawyers or others approved by the court.
Trump's team wants the judge to impose a more limited order that would bar the public release only of materials deemed “sensitive” — such as grand jury documents. They wrote in court papers that the need to protect sensitive information “does not require a blanket gag order over all documents produced by the government.”
Prosecutors have accused Trump of objecting to their proposal because he wants to be able to use the government's evidence to “try the case in the media rather than in the courtroom.”
Trump has characterized the case and two others he faces as efforts to hurt his campaign to reclaim the White House in 2024.
His legal team has indicated that it will argue that he relied on the advice of attorneys around him in 2020 and that Trump had a right to challenge an election that he believed had been stolen.
Trump has already said he will push to have the case moved out of Washington, claiming he can't get a fair trial in the heavily Democratic city that voted overwhelmingly for Biden. But it's extremely difficult to get a case moved, and judges in Washington — including the one overseeing his case — have repeatedly rejected similar efforts by Trump supporters charged in the January 6 Capitol attack.
Prosecutors on Thursday told the judge they are seeking a Jan. 2 trial date in the case.
Trump's lawyers have yet to suggest a trial date but have indicated they will seek to slow down the case. The judge is expected to choose a date at the next hearing scheduled for August 28.
Trump is already scheduled to go to trial in March in a case in New York stemming from hush money payments made during the 2016 campaign.
The former president is also scheduled to go to trial in May in another case brought by Smith over his handling of classified documents found at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. (AP)
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)