Donald's No Good Very Bad Brief

We could be hours away from reading Jack Smith's immunity brief, and Donald is so terrified of what's in it, he's changing his tune on "free speech".

Oh how quickly we turn from free speech absolutist to a pro-redaction machine in the space of a year.

As you know, last Thursday, Jack Smith filed his massive 180 page immunity brief with his proposed redactions, and Judge Chutkan gave Donald until today at noon eastern to file his disputes. Jack Smith based his redactions on three previous rulings by Judge Chutkan on what should be kept from the public in this case. One of those rulings came last year when Jack Smith asked for a protective order over discovery. Basically, Jack Smith asked the court to enter a protective order over all the evidence he had to hand over to Donald, non- sensitive and sensitive. Jack Smith wanted this because he was pretty sure Donald would publish cherry-picked, sensitive information to try the case in the court of public opinion and potentially taint the jury pool.

During that battle, Trump argued BUT I AND MY MILLIONS OF FOLLOWERS WHO CAME TO ME WITH TEARS IN THEIR EYES DEMAND OUR FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS. YOU CAN’T CENSOR US.

This is from his filing last year in that battle:

In a trial about First Amendment rights, the government seeks to restrict First Amendment rights. Worse, it does so against its administration’s primary political opponent, during an election season in which the administration, prominent party members, and media allies have campaigned on the indictment and proliferated its false allegations.

Against this backdrop, the government requests the Court assume the role of censor and impose content-based regulations on President Trump’s political speech that would forbid him from publicly discussing or disclosing all non-public documents produced by the government, including both purportedly sensitive materials, and non-sensitive, potentially exculpatory documents.

This untargeted method offends both the First Amendment, which requires a compelling government interest and narrow tailoring to justify a prior restraint.

Here, President Trump does not contest the government’s claimed interest in restricting some of the documents… However, the need to protect that information does not require a blanket gag order over all documents produced by the government. Rather, the Court can, and should, limit its protective order to genuinely sensitive materials—a less restrictive alternative that would satisfy any government interest in confidentiality while preserving the First Amendment rights of President Trump and the public.

Guess what? Judge Chutkan ruled in favor of Trump. And that ruling is governing the redactions in the immunity brief. And now, Donald is BIG MAD about getting what he asked for a year ago.

Today, he told the court:

The true motivation driving the efforts by the Special Counsel’s Office to disseminate witness statements that they previously sought to lock down is as obvious as it is inappropriate. The Office wants their politically motivated manifesto to be public, contrary to the Justice Manual and longstanding DOJ norms in cases not involving President Trump, in the final weeks of the 2024 Presidential election while early voting has already begun throughout the United States.

…it is irresponsible for the prosecutors to so quickly abandon the safety and privacy interests that they previously assigned great weight in this case and in the Southern District of Florida. Accordingly, the Court should require the Office to make consistent redactions regarding identity-related information and to show cause why their proposed public disclosure of voluminous purportedly sensitive witness statements will not pose risks to potential witnesses and unfairly prejudice the adjudication of this case.

President Trump has abided by these restrictions for over a year. Yet now, in advance of predictable national news coverage, the Office seeks to disseminate protected content of Sensitive Materials, including direct quotations and summaries, while the gag order restricts President Trump’s ability to fully address the details of the filing on the campaign trail.

You’ll notice I’ve bolded some of the stuff we can expect to get after Judge Chutkan rules on the redactions - which could be as soon as this afternoon. Trump goes on to say:

Now that public disclosure serves their politically motivated mission, the Special Counsel’s Office takes a different view. The Office believes President Trump’s Constitutional rights to impartial jurors and fair proceedings—to say nothing of witness privacy and even safety—all take a back seat to the Office’s political goals. Indeed, the Office’s implicit position is that all of these important considerations must give way to their objective of providing voters across the country immediate access to an unprecedented filing, with no legal basis, which just so happens to retread false allegations against the leading candidate for the Presidency during early voting for the 2024 election.

It comes as no surprise that last year Donald said RELEASE IT ALL, IT’S MY FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHT, and now he’s saying KEEP IT ALL SECRET, YOU’RE TRYING TO INTERFERE IN THE ELECTION.

Be careful what you wish for, Donald!

Stay tuned for the release of the first half of the Jack Smith motion!

~AG