The federal judge overseeing the case accusing former President Donald Trump of working to overturn the 2020 election released hundreds of pages of heavily redacted evidence gathered by Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith.
Many of the documents released Friday — in four volumes — have been made public already.
The first volume has excerpts from interviews conducted by the now-disbanded House Select Committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
The second contains social media posts from Trump and his allies that relate to baseless claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election and Jan. 6, including some posted during the attack — like his remark that Vice President Mike Pence “didn’t have the courage” to reject the results of the 2020 election.
The third includes a myriad of documents, including highlighted pages from Pence’s 2022 autobiography “So Help Me God” and the transcript of Trump’s 2021 phone call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which he urged the Republican election official to “find 11,780 votes,” enough to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in the state. It also includes photos of signed fake elector certificates, part of an effort by Trump to cling to power.
The fourth contains, among other documents, memos from conservative attorney John Eastman detailing his proposal for Pence to reject the results of the election on Jan. 6, 2021.
The release of the documents came one day after District Judge Tanya Chutkan rejected Trump’s request to delay them. She ordered the documents to be unsealed last week, but delayed the release to give Trump’s attorneys time to appeal her ruling.
"If 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 — or appear to be — election interference," she wrote in her decision Thursday. "The court will therefore continue to keep political considerations out of its decision-making, rather than incorporating them as Defendant requests."
Ahead of the release of the documents, Trump called Smith a “sick puppy” and baselessly alleged election interference.
“The judge is allowing him to do it and it’s not even believable,” the former president told conservative host Dan Bongino on his radio program. “This guy is a sick puppy, and they’re going to release something else. And always before the election — it’s election interference. No, it’s a terrible thing what’s happening.”
He also called Judge Chutkan "the most evil person” and lamented that the case was assigned to her.
Trump faces four felony charges in the case, including conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruction. He has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing.
The release of documents is the latest action in the case since the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that presidents enjoy some level of immunity from prosecution for official acts. Smith filed a new indictment in the case — with a pared down explanation of the charges — after the high court’s ruling. The special counsel argues Trump was acting as a private citizen when he allegedly tried to subvert the election results.
A filing from Smith earlier this month detailed “extremely desperate” efforts by Trump and his allies to overturn the results of the election. Earlier this week, Smith argued that Trump bears responsibility for the Jan. 6 attack, part of a response to a motion by the former president’s lawyers seeking to dismiss the case.