Judge rejects Trump’s motion to strike on January 6. Citations from federal election case

The federal judge overseeing former President Donald J. Trump’s trial on charges of conspiring to overturn the 2020 election on Friday rejected a request from Mr. Trump’s lawyers to remove language from his indictment that describes the role he played in the violence that broke out at the Capitol on Friday. January 6, 2021.

The ruling by judge Tanya S. Chutkan was a first step in allowing prosecutors in the case to present evidence at trial that members of the mob that stormed the Capitol that day believed they were acting under instructions from Mr Trump.

Last month, Trump’s lawyers asked Judge Chutkan to remove any mention of the Capitol riot from the 45-page indictment filed against him this summer in Federal District Court in Washington. The lawyers argued that since none of the four charges in the case explicitly accused Mr. Trump of inciting violence that day, any reference to the mob attack would be prejudicial and irrelevant.

Prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, shot back that even if they had not filed formal charges, the riot would play a major role in their efforts to prove one of their central charges: that Mr. Trump was a plotted to certify the elections that took place during a proceeding at the Capitol on January 6.

In filings before Judge Chutkan, prosecutors called the Jan. 6 attack “the culmination” of Trump’s “criminal plots” to overturn the election. They also suggested that they were about to introduce video evidence of the riot and call witnesses at the trial who could testify that they attacked police and stormed the Capitol after hearing Mr. Trump urging them to “fight ‘ in a speech he gave before the violence broke out. out.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers have suggested that they will seek to prevent Mr. Smith’s team from introducing such evidence at trial in a future motion. If the lawyers ultimately go that route, Judge Chutkan will have to rule again on whether the evidence is relevant and not prejudicial.

Her decision to keep references to the riot in the indictment came on the same day a group of news organizations renewed a request to televise the trial.

Lawyers for the news organizations said Trump had tried to challenge the “very legitimacy” of the case, and they argued that a live broadcast was necessary so people could watch the trial firsthand.

“Of all the trials in American history, this one requires the public trust that only a televised proceeding can foster,” attorneys for the organizations wrote.

The A short summary of nine pages by the media – including The New York Times – was the latest round of court documents expected to be filed with Judge Chutkan before she decides whether to allow cameras during the trial, which is expected to begin in March.

Lawyers for Mr. Trump, in a combative and misleading filing last week, likened the election interference case to “a trial in an authoritarian regime.” They told Judge Chutkan that it should be televised so that the public did not have to rely on “biased, second-hand stories coming from the Biden administration and its media allies.”

Within days, prosecutors in the special counsel’s office fired back that broadcasting the proceedings would not only violate longstanding federal rules of criminal procedure, but would also harm Mr. Trump, a former reality TV star, would enable the process to become a ‘media trial’. event” with a “carnival atmosphere.”

Lawyers for the media coalition said in their filing Friday that it was “naive to think that the Trump trial will be anything other than a ‘media event’.”

But the lawyers said broadcasting the proceedings live – in a “dignified, carefully managed” manner – would allow the public to “see this trial firsthand” after Trump relentlessly attacked the administration’s case as an act of purely political justice. persecution.

“The media coalition believes that the more people see the process in real time, the stronger the case for public acceptance of the outcome,” the lawyers wrote.

The judge overseeing Mr. Trump’s trial in Fulton County, Georgia, on charges of tampering with that state’s election has already televised several key hearings and has promised to broadcast the trial itself, which has already could take place next summer. (Prosecutors in Georgia filed a motion Friday asking for an August 5 start date, although the trial president will ultimately determine the trial date.)

But the federal courts have stricter rules about cameras in the courtroom, and Judge Chutkan would have to set them aside to allow her trial to be broadcast live.