I mean, if 'they' didn't do anything wrong and have
absolutely nothing to hide, why get their panties in a
bunch because documents were released - many heavily
redacted, blank or already public.
"Trump calls judge ‘the most evil person’ as she
releases 1,889 heavily redacted pages of evidence in
Jan. 6 case
The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s election
interference case in Washington, DC unsealed nearly
2,000 heavily redacted pages of evidence submitted by
the special counsel’s office, with only handfuls of
readable pages across four massive filings that trace
the history of the former president’s election
denialism.
The filings published on Friday included transcripts of
Trump’s remarks, social media posts, interviews from
the House select committee that investigated the
January 6 attack, campaign emails, the so-called “coup
memo” outlining the legally dubious attempt to reject
the electoral college certification, and excerpts from
Mike Pence’s book and his statement refusing to reject
election results.
Trump called Judge Tanya Chutkan “the most evil person”
and labeled special counsel Jack Smith a “sick puppy”
as he lashed out at the criminal case against him
during a podcast on Friday.
He called the case “a terrible thing” and “election
interference” as the Republican presidential nominee
navigates criminal cases in Washington and Georgia for
his efforts to subvert his 2020 loss.
Most of the evidence was already public, but the
documents are now baked into 1,889 pages of appendices
to bolster Smith’s case against the former president,
informing the narrative that led to criminal charges of
conspiracy and obstruction.
Most of the pages across the four appendices are empty,
with the word “SEALED” above them.
Judge Chutkan’s late-night ruling on Thursday ordered
the documents to be unsealed the following day,
rejecting Trump’s argument that even the release of
mostly blank pages would constitute election
interference.
The judge said the opposite is true: denying evidence
from the public would be its own form of voter
manipulation.
“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,” she wrote.
Both parties have access to the unredacted versions.
The remaining pages that are available to the public
largely consist of previously released documents that
have been widely reported in the years after Trump’s
attempts to reverse his election loss.
The unsealing follows Smith’s publication of a mammoth
filing that provided the public with the fullest
picture yet of his case, offering up new details about
Trump’s alleged scheme and providing the court with a
blueprint for evidence that prosecutors intend to show
to a jury at trial.
The 165-page document outlines Trump’s “increasingly
desperate” and criminal efforts to cling to power while
relying on “knowingly false claims of election fraud,”
according to prosecutors.
To support those allegations, the special counsel’s
office provided the court with more than 1,800 pages
across four appendices.
The unredacted pages include Trump’s tweet calling on
supporters to Washington, DC, on January 6 — “Be there.
It will be wild!” — along with dozens of social media
posts baselessly alleging fraud in the 2020
presidential election. There are also more recent Trump
statements — including a Truth Social post from March
2024 referring to January 6 defendants as “hostages.”
Evidence also includes several highlighted passages
from Pence’s book recalling Trump’s apparent pressure
campaign, along with a copy of the former vice
president’s statement announcing that he would certify
the election results against Trump’s command.
Other already public documents include transcripts from
Trump’s press appearances, press briefings, and the
special counsel 2020 report on Peter Navarro’s Hatch
Act violations.
The filings did include at least one document that had
not been made public: a previously redacted transcript
of the House select committee’s interview of a former
White House valet who was with Trump on January 6.
According to the valet, Trump returned to the White
House at around 1:21 p.m. and asked to see footage of
his speech to supporters earlier that day.
Based on the transcript, it appeared that the valet was
shown time-stamped photos of the interaction. He told
the committee that news coverage of his speech was
interrupted by footage of the Capitol attack.
“‘Sir, they cut it off because they’re rioting down at
the Capitol,’” he said, according to the transcript.
“And he was like, ‘What do you mean?’ I said, ‘It’s,
like, They’re rioting down there at the Capitol.’ And
he was like ‘Oh, really?’ And then he was like ‘All
right, let’s go see.’”
He then described getting Trump a Diet Coke while he
watched the footage.
The release of documents in the case — which was frozen
for months while Trump appealed on “immunity” grounds
all the way to the Supreme Court — comes after Smith
revived his indictment against the former president to
navigate the high court’s ruling, which granted Trump
some immunity from criminal prosecution for crimes tied
to official duties in office.
A superseding indictment retains the core allegations
against the former president, but Smith clarified that
Trump and his alleged co-conspirators acted in their
“private” roles — not as public servants performing
official responsibilities. Trump was acting as a
candidate for office, not an office holder, when he
committed the crimes at the center of the case,
according to Smith.
Trump’s attorneys are expected to file a response to
Smith’s argument by November 7 — two days after
Election Day.
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