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Judge Tanya Chutkan blocked former President Donald Trump from seeing federal prosecutors' evidence ahead of his federal election interference trial.
A federal grand jury in August indicted Trump on four counts, including conspiracy to defraud the United States. Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith has investigated Trump's alleged efforts to overturn the election results, including attempts to submit false slates of pro-Trump electors from swing states he lost to the Electoral College.
Trump maintains his innocence, accusing prosecutors of targeting him for political purposes. He pleaded not guilty in this case, as he did in his three other criminal cases.
Chutkan, who is overseeing the trial, issued an order on Wednesday blocking Trump's legal team from seeing some of the government's evidence against him that has been deemed classified.
Chutkan granted the government's motion to allow prosecutors to withhold "certain classified information" from the former president, instead allowing them to provide an "unclassified summary substitution for certain classified information."
The government cited the Classified Information Procedures Act and Rule (CIPA) in their motion requesting to withhold the information. As the information is classified, the nature of the evidence being held from Trump's legal team remains unknown.
Judge Chutkan determined the summary posed by the government "adequately describes any content of the withheld materials that could be considered relevant and helpful to the defense," siding with Smith.
Trump's legal team earlier in October introduced their own motion requesting "attorneys'-eyes-only" access to the CIPA documents.
"At the outset, it bears emphasis that the defense identifies no case in which any court has ordered the relief they seek here, and this court is aware of none. There is good reason for that lack of precedent: "As [CIPA's] House Report explains, 'since the government is seeking to withhold classified information from the defendant, an adversary hearing with defense knowledge would defeat the very purpose of the discovery rules,'" Chutkan wrote.
She continued, "It is not possible to isolate the unclassified portions of the CIPA § 4 Motion in such a way that its arguments could be meaningfully litigated."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign via email for comment.
Aileen Cannon Issues Separate Order on Classified Evidence
Just minutes earlier, Judge Aileen Cannon, who is overseeing the federal trial into the classified documents found at Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence, issued a separate order surrounding a CIPA order filed by the government.
In that order, the government requested to use a separate CIPA rule to more broadly limit Trump's legal team's access to classified documents.
Cannon, however, dismissed their case as lacking "merit." Cannon ruled federal prosecutors must go through the "proper mechanism" to do so, even if the special counsel "meets its burden to restrict from Defendants whatever quantity of classified information it seeks to restrict."
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About the writer
Andrew Stanton is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in Maine. His role is reporting on U.S. politics and social issues. ... Read more