Former President Donald Trump was denied his bid to remove specific “inflammatory” allegations against him in a 2020 elections subversion case that links to the January 6 riot at the United States Capitol, according to a judge’s ruling Friday.
Trump’s attorneys argued in a late-October court filing to U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan that she should remove references to acts committed by rioters from special counsel Jack Smith‘s indictment, which charges the former president with four felony counts over an alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election. Chutkan denied that request from Trump in an order Friday, arguing the indictment is irrelevant to the jury who will be hearing the case.
“Regardless of whether the allegations at issue are relevant, Defendant has not satisfied his burden to clearly show that they are prejudicial,” Chutkan wrote, referring to the rhetoric Trump wanted removed. “He argues that sharing the allegations with the jury may result in prejudice at his trial ‘because members of the jury may wrongfully impute fault to [him]’ for ‘the actions at the Capitol on January 6,'” Chutkan added.
“But consistent with its past practice, this court will not provide a copy of the indictment to jurors, eliminating that source of potential prejudice,” Chutkan wrote in the three-page ruling.
In the indictment, Smith at one point described, for example, how a “large and angry crowd — including many individuals whom [Trump] had deceived into believing the Vice President could and might change the election results — violently attacked the Capitol and halted the proceeding.”
Smith also referenced how some in the crowd, who had traveled to Washington and then the Capitol specifically “at [Trump’s] direction,” had broken through barriers into restricted areas and assaulted police officers.
But Smith’s indictment also focused heavily on the accusation that Trump illegally worked to arrange alternate electors in battleground states to vote for Trump in the election based on unproven claims of widespread election fraud.
Trump had argued that even if the jury didn’t receive a copy of the indictment, “[v]oluminous evidence exists here that the jury pool has been, and continues to be, exposed to the Indictment and its inflammatory and prejudicial allegations, through media coverage relating to the case.”
“Because the Government has not charged President Trump with responsibility for the actions at the Capitol on January 6, 2021, allegations related to these actions are not relevant and are prejudicial and inflammatory,” Trump’s attorneys wrote in their late-October motion.
Chutkan said Friday that Trump’s attorneys failed to cite “even one example of that evidence.”
“Moreover, before the jurors deliberate, the court will instruct them on the actual charges and the evidence they may consider in their deliberations,” Chutkan added.
Trump was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States, witness tampering, conspiracy against the rights of citizens, and obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding on Aug. 1.
Trump, who is seeking a second term in the Oval Office, has pleaded not guilty to the charges and is also attempting to upend a gag order placed on him in the case ahead of his jury trial. That trial is also slated for March 4, the day before the major Republican primary voting day known as Super Tuesday.