An extensive trove of heavily redacted documents about former President Trump’s actions on Jan. 6 was released Friday as part of Special Counsel Jack Smith’s election interference case.
The 1,889 pages of documents appear to include no fresh bombshells and the un-redacted documents include mostly previously released memos, social media postings and transcripts.
Federal District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the cache of new documents unsealed after rejecting Trump defense claims that releasing them before the November presidential vote would amount to election interference.
Chutkan said she is scrupulously avoiding considering any impact her decisions may or may not have on the White House contest.
In any case, Trump’s fears about the document dump appeared to be mostly unfounded as the vast majority of the documents were redacted in the trove, which included four appendices from a previous filing by Smith.
One newly released grand jury transcript quoted an unnamed White House aide who related that he told Trump that there was a riot at the Capitol upon his return to the Oval Office following a fiery speech delivered to supporters on Jan. 6.
Trump seemed to be unfazed by the disturbing news, and turned on the TV to watch the violence unfold, the worker said.
“He was like: ‘Oh, really?’” the employee said, according to the transcript. “And then he was like: ‘All right, let’s go see.’”
The Smith filing earlier this month argued that Trump “resorted to crimes” and bullied Mike Pence in the plot to overturn his loss in the 2020 election.
In those documents, prosecutors detailed Trump’s effort to cajole Pence into joining the illegal scheme to stay in power and his effort to incite his followers to attack the Capitol and block the certifications of President Biden’s election when Pence refused.
Trump was hit with a new streamlined superseding indictment in the case after the Supreme Court ruling last summer.
But any potential trial is many months away. Chutkan still needs to rule if the new charges meet the criteria laid down for determining presidential immunity. Her ruling would then likely be appealed back to the Supreme Court.
Trump already faces sentencing after Election Day for his criminal conviction in the Manhattan hush money case in which he was convicted.
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