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Special counsel releases trove of redacted documents in 2020 election subversion case against Trump
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Special counsel releases trove of redacted documents in 2020 election subversion case against Trump



CNN

Special counsel Jack Smith on Friday released nearly 2,000 heavily redacted pages of documents in his criminal case against former President Donald Trump for election subversion in 2020, revealing excerpts from the evidence Smith relied on to indict the former president.

Most pages are fully redacted and are believed to contain grand jury transcripts and notes from FBI interviews conducted during the years-long investigation.

The visible documents mostly contain information that has already been publicly released, including a transcript of Trump's call to Georgia's secretary of state after the 2020 election in which Trump asked him to “find” votes, photos of the fraudulent 2020 ballots, and Vice's letter President Mike Pence to Congress explaining why he could not reject Congress' certification of the January 6, 2021 election.

But the evidence publicly released Friday provides a glimpse into the tools Smith is using to prosecute Trump. In one case, the transcript of the House committee's January 6, 2022 interview with an unnamed White House staffer contained some new details.

Earlier this year, House Republicans released a transcript of the committee's interview with the White House staffer, but Republicans redacted some of the staffer's answers that Smith highlighted.

According to the transcript, the White House staffer told Trump that the television networks had pulled out of his speech because “they're rioting down at the Capitol.”

“And he asked, What do you mean? I said, It's like they're rioting there in the Capitol. And he was like, “Oh, really?” And then he was like, “Okay, let's see,” the clerk said.

The staffer told the committee that he removed Trump's outer coat, retrieved a television and gave Trump the remote control, then went to get a Diet Coke for the president, who was sitting in the Oval Dining Room.

“I take off his coat that he's wearing and get the TV ready for him, give him the remote and he starts watching it,” the employee said. “And I went out to get him a Diet Coke, came back in, and that was it for me while he looked at it and sort of saw it for himself.”

The redacted appendices, filed in the case's public docket, are related to Smith's detailed filing earlier this month, in which he laid out his most comprehensive picture yet of the case against Trump and Smith's belief that his actions related to the election Should not be protected by presidential immunity in 2020.

The documents were released a day after Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected an offer from Trump to suspend publication. Trump argued that the release of the documents could now serve as a conclusion to the election and had asked that they be kept under wraps until after Election Day.

“If the court withholds information that the public would otherwise have a right to access simply because of the potential political consequences of its release, that withholding could itself constitute — or appear to be — election interference,” Chutkan wrote late Thursday in a decision.

The documents were released in four volumes on Friday. The following is included on the redacted, blank pages:

The first volume of evidence contains excerpts from interviews conducted by various House committees on January 6 as part of the committee's investigation into the Capitol riots.

The The second volume contains sealed pages as well as tweets and other social media posts from Trump, his campaign and his allies, including some posted during the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

One of the tweets includes Trump's post that day that Pence “didn't have the courage to do what should have been done” that day to support his efforts to change the election results.

Others include a variety of claims of voter fraud during the 2020 election.

Prosecutors have argued that these tweets should be used by Trump at trial because they were personal in nature or part of his campaign efforts and did not reflect his official duties as president.

The third volume includes photos of the signed fraudulent ballots that Trump's allies hoped would help overturn the 2020 election results, photos of pages from Pence's 2022 autobiography and the transcript of Trump's January phone call with Georgia's secretary of state 2020.

The final volume contains memos from attorney John Eastman outlining a plan for Pence to reject Congress' certification for the 2020 election. The volume also includes a public statement that Trump released the evening before January 6th in which he claimed that he and Pence agreed on congressional certification, Trump's prepared remarks for his January 6th speech, and fundraising Emails sent as part of his 2020 campaign in the days prior to January 6th.

The documents also include a copy of a handwritten note urging Pence to “reject” voters, a Jan. 6 budget and a transcript of Trump's 2023 CNN town hall.

Prosecutors have charged Trump with four crimes stemming from his actions after his 2020 election loss, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

In a blockbuster ruling this summer, the Supreme Court declared that Trump enjoyed partial presidential immunity for alleged crimes he committed while in office. Chutkan must now decide how to apply that ruling to the conduct at issue in this case.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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