Jack Smith accuses Trump of ‘threatening’ Mark Meadows — asks for gag order to be revivedrejected the Trump legal team’s motion for access to a tranche of the government’s evidence against the president that is marked classified in the case accusing the ex-president of trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat.restriction on access Trump’s co-defendants’ legal counsel have to some of the classified information in question for the Mar-a-Lago documents case.
“So again, we are left with the broad and unconvincing theory, which is that the Court must change the meaning of the word ‘defendant’ to mean, essentially, ‘defense attorney to the exclusion of defendant.’ The court refuses to do so,” Cannon
Cannon’s order was specific to Trump’s valet Walt Nauta and Mar-a-Lago maintenance chief Carlos De Oliveira, who have also been indicted in the classified documents case.Judge Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee, has generally been seen as friendly to the former president’s legal team in the Mar-a-Lago case.Cannon further directed Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team to make requests for deleting portions of files from classified discovery “from any defendant” during a pre-trial motion. headtopics.com
“This order does not authorize the disclosure of any classified information to any defendant beyond the terms of the existing protective orders,” she stressed.During a hearing on the timeline for that case Wednesday, Cannon also signaled that she was sympathetic to Trump’s push to delay the trial, which is slated for May 2024.
“I’m having a hard time seeing how this work can be accomplished in this compressed time frame,” Cannon said. Trump, 77, is scheduled to head to a separate trial on March 4, just one day before the Super Tuesday presidential primary contest, for the Jan. 6 case against him being adjudicated by Chutkan. headtopics.com
In her order Wednesday, Chutkan agreed that federal prosecutors can withhold “certain classified information” from Trump’s defense team.Judge Tanya Chutkan has spared Donald Trump’s legal team in the past. Recently, she reimposed a partial gag order against the former president.