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The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump\u2019s election interference case in Washington, DC unsealed nearly 2,000 heavily redacted pages of evidence submitted by the special counsel\u2019s office, with only handfuls of readable pages across four massive filings that trace the history of the former president\u2019s election denialism.<\/p>\n
The filings published on Friday included transcripts of Trump\u2019s remarks, social media posts, interviews from the House select committee that investigated the January 6 attack, campaign emails, the so-called \u201ccoup memo\u201d outlining the legally dubious attempt to reject the electoral college certification, and excerpts from Mike Pence\u2019s book and his statement refusing to reject election results.<\/p>\n
Trump called Judge Tanya Chutkan \u201cthe most evil person\u201d and labeled special counsel Jack Smith a \u201csick puppy\u201d as he lashed out at the criminal case against him during a podcast on Friday.<\/p>\n
He called the case \u201ca terrible thing\u201d and \u201celection interference\u201d as the Republican presidential nominee navigates criminal cases in Washington and Georgia for his efforts to subvert his 2020 loss.<\/p>\n
Most of the evidence was already public, but the documents are now baked into 1,889 pages of appendices to bolster Smith\u2019s case against the former president, informing the narrative that led to criminal charges of conspiracy and obstruction.<\/p>\n
Most of the pages across the four appendices are empty, with the word \u201cSEALED\u201d above them.<\/p>\n
Judge Chutkan\u2019s late-night ruling on Thursday ordered the documents to be unsealed the following day, rejecting Trump\u2019s argument that even the release of mostly blank pages would constitute election interference.<\/p>\n
The judge said the opposite is true: denying evidence from the public would be its own form of voter manipulation.<\/p>\n
Special counsel Jack Smith (AFP via Getty Images)\u201cIf 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 \u2014 or appear to be \u2014 election interference,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n
Both parties have access to the unredacted versions.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s attempts to reverse his election loss.<\/p>\n
The unsealing follows Smith\u2019s publication of a mammoth filing that provided the public with the fullest picture yet of his case, offering up new details about Trump\u2019s alleged scheme and providing the court with a blueprint for evidence that prosecutors intend to show to a jury at trial.<\/p>\n
The 165-page document outlines Trump\u2019s \u201cincreasingly desperate\u201d and criminal efforts to cling to power while relying on \u201cknowingly false claims of election fraud,\u201d according to prosecutors.<\/p>\n
To support those allegations, the special counsel\u2019s office provided the court with more than 1,800 pages across four appendices.<\/p>\n
The unredacted pages include Trump\u2019s tweet calling on supporters to Washington, DC, on January 6 \u2014 \u201cBe there. It will be wild!\u201d \u2014 along with dozens of social media posts baselessly alleging fraud in the 2020 presidential election. There are also more recent Trump statements \u2014 including a Truth Social post from March 2024 referring to January 6 defendants as \u201chostages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evidence also includes several highlighted passages from Pence\u2019s book recalling Trump\u2019s apparent pressure campaign, along with a copy of the former vice president\u2019s statement announcing that he would certify the election results against Trump\u2019s command.<\/p>\n
Then-Vice President Mike Pence presided over a joint session of Congress to certify 2020 election results on January 6, 2021. (POOL\/AFP via Getty Images)Other already public documents include transcripts from Trump\u2019s press appearances, press briefings, and the special counsel 2020 report on Peter Navarro\u2019s Hatch Act violations.<\/p>\n
The filings did include at least one document that had not been made public: a previously redacted transcript of the House select committee\u2019s interview of a former White House valet who was with Trump on January 6.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Sir, they cut it off because they\u2019re rioting down at the Capitol,\u2019\u201d he said, according to the transcript. \u201cAnd he was like, \u2018What do you mean?\u2019 I said, \u2018It\u2019s, like, They\u2019re rioting down there at the Capitol.\u2019 And he was like \u2018Oh, really?\u2019 And then he was like \u2018All right, let\u2019s go see.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
He then described getting Trump a Diet Coke while he watched the footage.<\/p>\n
A mob of Donald Trump\u2019s supporters break into the Capitol to disrupt the certification of the 2020 election on January 6, 2021. (REUTERS)The release of documents in the case \u2014 which was frozen for months while Trump appealed on \u201cimmunity\u201d grounds all the way to the Supreme Court \u2014 comes after Smith revived his indictment against the former president to navigate the high court\u2019s ruling, which granted Trump some immunity from criminal prosecution for crimes tied to official duties in office.<\/p>\n
A superseding indictment retains the core allegations against the former president, but Smith clarified that Trump and his alleged co-conspirators acted in their \u201cprivate\u201d roles \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s attorneys are expected to file a response to Smith\u2019s argument by November 7 \u2014 two days after Election Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington email The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump\u2019s election interference case in Washington, DC unsealed nearly 2,000 heavily redacted pages of evidence submitted by the special counsel\u2019s office, with only handfuls of readable pages […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3727,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n