'Not a cognizable legal prejudice': Jan. 6 judge scoffs at Trump's arguments to delay unsealing Smith docs but gives him 7-day stay to 'evaluate litigation options'

The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s Jan. 6 criminal case has given the ex-president an extra week to consider his next legal steps in light of her decision to unseal a filing from special prosecutor Jack Smith.

In a filing Thursday, Trump asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to keep an appendix to Smith’s Oct. 2 motion regarding the president’s claims of immunity out of the public view. Smith’s motion came after the Supreme Court’s landmark July ruling granting the president wide immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts. In Smith’s motion, as Law&Crime reported, the special prosecutor alleged that Trump knew he lost the 2020 election, mocked “Kraken” lawyer Sidney Powell ’s theories as “crazy,” did not share evidence of his fraud claims with allies when they asked for it, and even “made up figures” about noncitizens voting “from whole cloth.”

Trump, who previously fought against limitations on what he could say about the case, repeated his request that Smith’s compiled facts — specifically, those contained in an appendix to the motion — remain under seal. His legal team has previously asked to extend the deadline to respond to Smith’s motion until after the 2024 presidential election, in which Trump is facing off against Democratic candidate Vice President Kamala Harris .

“There should be no further disclosures at this time of the so-called ‘evidence’ that the Special Counsel’s Office has unlawfully cherry-picked and mischaracterized — during early voting in the 2024 Presidential election — in connection with an improper Presidential immunity filing that has no basis in criminal procedure or judicial precedent,” the filing says.

The lawyers implied in the filing that the ex-president would fight any decision Chutkan made that would allow the release of Smith’s evidence.

“If the Court decides to release additional information relating to the Office’s filing, in the Appendix or otherwise, President Trump respectfully requests that the Court stay that determination for a reasonable period of time so that President Trump can evaluate litigation options relating to the decision,” the brief says.

Chutkan addressed that pledge in her order, which was also filed Thursday.

“As in his previous filing, [Trump] identifies no specific substantive objections to particular proposed redactions. Instead, Defendant ‘maintains his objections” to any ‘further disclosures at this time’ for the same reasons he opposed unsealing the Motion, and he requests that ‘[i]f the Court decides to release additional information relating to the Office’s filing, in the Appendix or otherwise, … that the Court stay that determination for a reasonable period of time so that [he] can evaluate litigation options relating to the decision.'”

The judge ultimately determined that “the Government’s proposed redactions to the Appendix are appropriate, and that Defendant’s blanket objections to further unsealing are without merit.”

“As the court has stated previously, ‘Defendant’s concern with the political consequences of these proceedings’ is not a cognizable legal prejudice,” the order continues.

Nevertheless, despite granting Smith’s request to file its redacted version of the appendix to the immunity motion, Chutkan did grant Trump a reprieve.

“The court will grant Defendant’s request for a stay so that he can ‘evaluate litigation options,’ and hereby stays this decision for seven days,” she wrote in the order.

Read Trump’s filing here and Chutkan’s order here .

The post ‘Not a cognizable legal prejudice’: Jan. 6 judge scoffs at Trump’s arguments to delay unsealing Smith docs but gives him 7-day stay to ‘evaluate litigation options’ first appeared on Law & Crime .