Washington— A federal judge hearing over the classified materials case against former President Donald Trump accepted prosecutors' request to shield potential government witnesses' identity on Tuesday. U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon refused to ban witness testimony from pretrial motions, calling it “sweeping” and “blanket” inapplicable.
The 24-page decision concerns a dispute between special counsel Jack Smith's team and Trump lawyers over witness and statement disclosure before trial. The weeks-long dispute was one of many that had piled up before Cannon and hindered the Trump lawsuit, one of four he faces.
Both sides have stated they could try the case this summer, but no date has been set. Cannon, who was slammed for granting Trump's request for an independent arbiter to review documents from an FBI search of Mar-a-Lago, said Tuesday that the case raised “still-developing and somewhat muddled questions.”
Cannon likely avoided a major escalation of tensions with Smith's team, which branded a second judge's judgment “fundamentally flawed” last week by rethinking and siding with prosecutors on witness identity protection.
In January, defense lawyers submitted a partially redacted motion to force prosecutors to turn over a cache of papers they claimed would prove the Biden administration had tried to “weaponize” the government in pursuing Trump. Defense lawyers requested permission to file the motion, which included primarily unredacted prosecutor information. Prosecutors opposed unsealing the motion because it could reveal government witnesses.
Cannon then allowed the defense request to file the motion and exhibits unredacted as long as witness identifying information was sealed. Smith's team advised her to reconsider since public identification may expose witnesses to threats and harassment.
“Although the record is clear that the Special Counsel could have, and should have, raised its current arguments previously, the Court elects, upon a full review of those newly raised arguments, to reconsider its prior Order,” she wrote Tuesday in agreeing to redact witness names.
The order did not completely satisfy prosecutors. Cannon denied Smith's team's request to seal all witness statements from pretrial motions except for identification information.
Cannon stated, “As for legal authority, the cases cited in the Special Counsel’s papers do not lend support to this sweeping request; nor do they appear to have been offered as such.” Based on the Court's independent study, granting this motion would be unprecedented: the Court cannot find any high-profile or otherwise case in which a court has granted anything remotely equal to the extensive relief sought here.”
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