Judge Approves Limited Further Release of Evidence in Trump Election Case

An appendix to a high-profile prosecutorial brief, released last week, could become public next week. But much of it would be redacted.

The federal judge overseeing the 2020 election case against former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday approved a limited release of a compilation of evidence against him, but stayed her order for a week in case Mr. Trump’s legal team wants to challenge the disclosure.

Even if the court filing at issue — an appendix to a 165-page brief by the special counsel, Jack Smith, that was unsealed last week — becomes public, it appears unlikely to contain significant new revelations. The judge, Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington, said all nonpublic sensitive material in the appendix, like grand jury transcripts and witness interview reports, would remain entirely redacted.

Mr. Trump’s legal team has objected to unsealing any portion of the appendix, arguing that doing so amounts to interference in next month’s presidential election. The jostling over the material is the latest step in the case against Mr. Trump for his attempts to overturn his loss of the 2020 election, culminating in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.

In July, the Supreme Court granted Mr. Trump partial immunity from prosecution based on his official acts as president and sent the case back to Judge Chutkan to sort through which evidence and allegations are immune and which can still be used at any eventual trial. (Should Mr. Trump win the election and return to the presidency, he could use his power over the Justice Department to fire Mr. Smith and terminate the case.)

As an initial step, Mr. Smith filed under seal a lengthy brief detailing the evidence he wants to use and laying out arguments for why none of it should be considered immune. That brief contained no major new revelations that were not in the indictment, but added some new details and texture supporting the major allegations against Mr. Trump.

Mr. Smith also filed under seal a much lengthier appendix of the underlying transcripts, documents and other materials from which the quoted portions in his brief were derived. Following Judge Chutkan’s decision to unseal the brief last week, the fight is now over whether any or how much of that appendix should also become public as the final weeks of the 2024 campaign tick down.

In a very short brief filed earlier on Thursday, Mr. Trump’s legal team — including John F. Lauro and Todd Blanche — argued that none of the appendix should be released, characterizing both the brief and the appendix as “election interference.”

They also asked Judge Chutkan to stay any contrary order about the appendix “for a reasonable period of time so that President Trump can evaluate litigation options relating to the decision.”

In her order approving a partial release of the appendix, Judge Chutkan noted that Mr. Trump’s brief had identified “no specific substantive objections to particular proposed redactions” and declared that his “blanket objections to further unsealing are without merit.” She said there was no legally recognizable element to Mr. Trump’s “concern with the political consequences of these proceedings.”

It was not clear whether there would be much new information in any released version of the appendix, however. Mr. Smith had proposed that if Judge Chutkan partly unsealed it, all nonpublic “sensitive materials,” as defined by an earlier protective order, be redacted in their entirety in the appendix — and Judge Chutkan agreed with that proposal.

“Sensitive materials,” according to the protective order, include grand jury transcripts, F.B.I. reports recounting witness interviews, and material obtained through sealed search warrants. Redacting such materials in their entirety would seem to largely leave only evidence that is already known, like Mr. Trump’s public comments about the 2020 election.

Indeed, Mr. Smith has also proposed redacting some public material, “such as the defendant’s Tweets, when such material identifies or targets an individual who — because of their status as a potential witness or involvement in underlying events — may be susceptible to threats or harassment, or may otherwise suffer a chilling effect on their trial testimony.”