Judge warns Trump not to threaten witnesses in 2020 election subversion case

A federal judge on Friday granted former US president Donald Trump leeway to publicly share some non-sensitive evidence that will be used in his trial on charges of plotting to overturn the 2020 election, but she also warned him to tread carefully about making inflammatory public statements.

“Even arguably ambiguous statements by the parties or their counsel – if they can be reasonably interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors – can threaten the process,” US district judge Tanya Chutkan said on Friday.

“I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case. I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings.”

Judge Chutkan’s warning came at a federal court hearing at which prosecutors and Mr Trump’s lawyers discussed disagreements over how much evidence in the case Mr Trump can share with the public.

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The judge’s decision to permit Mr Trump to share some non-sensitive material went against the objections of prosecutors, who pointed to threatening messages Mr Trump posted last week on social media as evidence that he might try to use details of the confidential evidence to intimidate witnesses.

Judge Chutkan ruled that the government had not met its burden to show why all of the evidence should be subject to a “protective order”, which safeguards evidence from being shared with the public in order to prevent witness intimidation or tainting a jury pool.

However, she warned that Mr Trump was nevertheless subject to release conditions which banned him from intimidating witnesses and said she would be watching his statements and “scrutinising them very carefully”.

The US government will still be allowed to petition the court for certain pieces of evidence to be covered by the order, and Judge Chutkan also on Friday agreed with prosecutors and rejected an argument by Mr Trump’s lawyers that the hundreds of transcripts of witness interviews, recordings and related exhibits were sensitive and could not be publicly shared.

“He is a criminal defendant. He is going to have restrictions like every single other defendant. This case is proceeding in the normal order,” Judge Chutkan said.

“The fact the defendant is engaged in a political campaign is not going to allow him any greater or lesser latitude than any defendant in a criminal case.”

It is standard practice for federal prosecutors to request protective orders before sharing evidence with defence lawyers to protect confidential records and ensure the integrity of the trial.

Often, defence lawyers do not oppose them because doing so slows down the government’s production of evidence, a process known as “discovery”, to help them prepare.

But Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that the scope of the protective order was too broad, and ran afoul of his free speech rights under the first amendment of the US constitution.

“This kind of blanket order is extraordinary,” Mr Trump’s lawyer, John Lauro, said on Friday. “We have to face the fact we are in uncharted waters.”

Federal prosecutors revealed on Friday that they intended to soon release to Mr Trump’s defence team 11.6 million pages and records of evidence, in addition to a hard drive containing images extracted from electronic devices.

The charges at issue in Friday’s hearing are one of three prosecutions currently targeting Mr Trump, the clear front-runner in the 2024 Republican presidential nomination race.

In Friday’s case, he has pleaded not guilty to criminal charges that he orchestrated a plot to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election to keep himself in power. – Reuters

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