U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan let slip that Donald Trump could still go down for election interference without having a direct connection to the January 6 rioters.
Chutkan shared in a ruling released on Wednesday that Trump "could share responsibility for the events of January 6 without such express authorization of rioters’ criminal actions."
Chutkan's ruling mostly denied the Trump team's request for wide-ranging discovery of classified documents on election interference in the 2016 and 2020 elections. Trump's attorneys claimed the reports on election interference would help establish Trump's state of mind in the lead-up to January 6, painting the former president as awash in materials that made him believe the integrity of the election was under attack.
Chutkan largely dismissed the arguments of Trump's team, pointing out that many reports Trump's team was seeking refuted the idea of widespread election interference and noting that material Trump did not have access to before January 6 could not have influenced his actions.
"Defendant does not claim to have reviewed the records he seeks, their sources, or their conclusions before or during the time period of his indicted conduct," Chutkan wrote.
The ruling comes the same day as a filing from special counsel Jack Smith that alleges Trump is directly responsible for the U.S. Capitol riot. Smith's team wrote that Trump "willfully caused others" to attempt to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden's election, saying that their case will “link the defendant’s actions on January 6 directly to his efforts to corruptly obstruct the certification proceeding.”
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