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U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied Friday a press coalition motion to unseal additional aspects of special counsel Jack Smith's immunity filing in the case involving former President Donald Trump.
Earlier this month, Chutkan, who is overseeing Trump's federal election subversion case, partly unsealed Smith's lengthy filing aimed at convincing her that the former president's alleged offenses are private, rather than official acts of office, and can therefore remain in his indictment.
"Although the defendant was the incumbent President during the charged conspiracies, his scheme was fundamentally a private one," Smith's 165-page filing read. "When the defendant lost the 2020 presidential election, he resorted to crimes to try to stay in office."
The press coalition argued that the filing should be further unsealed with only redactions that are "essential to preserve higher values" and "narrowly tailored to serve that interest," citing the First Amendment..
But on Friday, Chutkan said the press coalition's reliance on the First Amendment is "unavailing." She said that the redactions currently in the filing are "consistent with both the common-law and First Amendment rights of public access to judicial proceeding."
Chutkan did, however, agree on Thursday, to publicly release the appendix of Smith's filing, which includes redacted source documents that the special counsel used to support his argument for how the case could go forward. The appendix will be unsealed on October 17 as Chutkan gave Trump's legal team a week to "evaluate litigation options."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's communications director, Steven Cheung, via email and the Justice Department via online form for comment late Friday afternoon for comment
Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, faces four felony counts in the Justice Department's case against him in Washington, D.C., after he allegedly tried to overturn President Joe Biden's 2020 election victory in the aftermath of his loss, which culminated in the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021.
On that day, Trump supporters stormed the Capitol building in a failed attempt to stop Congress from certifying Biden's election win. The riot erupted following repeated claims from Trump that the election was stolen via widespread voter fraud, despite there being no substantial evidence of this occurring.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges and claimed the case is politically motivated against him.
In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's July 1 decision that former presidents have immunity for official acts conducted while in office but not for unofficial acts, Smith updated Trump's original indictment, and a grand jury reindicted the former president last month.
The superseding indictment removes some specific allegations against Trump, but the former president is still charged with the same four counts from the original indictment filed in August 2023: conspiracy to defraud the United States; conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding; obstruction and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding; and conspiracy against rights.
Chutkan gave Trump's lawyers until November 7, two days after this year's presidential election, to submit their retort to Smith's filing.
Update 10/11/24 4:35 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
Update 10/12/24 4:53 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
About the writer
Rachel Dobkin is a Newsweek reporter based in New York. Her focus is reporting on politics. Rachel joined Newsweek in ... Read more