Published April 9, 2024
WASHINGTON — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump granted a request by prosecutors on Tuesday aimed at protecting the identities of potential government witnesses.
But U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon refused to categorically block witness statements from being disclosed, saying there was no basis for such a “sweeping” and “blanket” restriction on their inclusion in pretrial motions.
The 24-page order centers on a dispute between special counsel Jack Smith’s team and lawyers for Trump over how much information about witnesses and their statements could be made public ahead of trial. The disagreement, which had been pending for weeks, was one of many that had piled up before Cannon and had slowed the pace of the case against Trump — one of four prosecutions he is confronting.
The case remains without a firm trial date, though both sides have said they could be ready this summer. Cannon, who earlier faced blistering criticism over her decision to grant Trump’s request for an independent arbiter to review documents obtained during an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, made clear her continued skepticism of the government’s theory of prosecution, saying Tuesday that the case raised “still-developing and somewhat muddled questions.”
In reconsidering an earlier order and siding with prosecutors on the protection of witness identities, Cannon likely averted a dramatic exacerbation of tensions with Smith’s team, which last week called a separate order from the judge “fundamentally flawed.”
The issue surfaced in January when defense lawyers filed in partially unredacted form a motion that sought to require prosecutors to turn over a trove of documents that they said would bolster their claim that the Biden administration had sought to “weaponize” the government in charging Trump.
She ordered Smith to submit an index that uses a generic substitute term — like FBI Agent 1 — for the individuals referenced in the court filings.
The judge also chided Smith for what she said were poorly made legal arguments in the early stages of the discussion. She said his later efforts offered better reasons to keep the names out of the public eye.
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SOURCE: www.washingtonpost.com
RELATED: After months, Judge Cannon agrees to shield Trump witness names
Special counsel Jack Smith has been arguing since January to keep the names of government agents redacted ahead of trial
U.S. District Court Judge Aileen M. Cannon in Florida, right, on Tuesday agreed to a request from special counsel Jack Smith, left, to keep the names and identifying information of government-agent witnesses under seal. (Tom Brenner for The Washington Post/U.S. Senate/AP)
Published April 9, 2024
Special counsel Jack Smith has spent months trying to convince Cannon to keep under seal the names of FBI agents, Secret Service agents and other potential witnesses in the case, which charges Trump with mishandling classified documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida home and private club.
Initially, Cannon ruled against Smith, but on Tuesday she relented, saying she would agree to keeping the names and identifying information under seal. It was not a total victory for Smith, however, because the judge also ruled that the substance of the witness statements can be made public in filings, so long as the material did not identify the witnesses or other people who are mentioned.
“Although the Special Counsel’s request remains sweeping in nature as applied to all potential government witnesses without differentiation … the Court is satisfied that the Special Counsel has made an adequate showing on this issue” for now, Cannon wrote in her 24-page ruling.
