Judge in Trump Classified Records Case Agrees to Redact Witness Names, Granting Request for Prosecution

WASHINGTON — The federal judge presiding over the classified documents case against former President Donald Trump on Tuesday granted a request from prosecutors to protect the identities of potential government witnesses.

But the U.S. District Judge Canon Aileen refused to categorically prevent the disclosure of witness statements, asserting that there was no basis for such a “blanket” and “general” restriction on their inclusion in pre-trial motions.

The 24-page order focuses on a dispute between special counsel Jack Smith’s team and Trump’s lawyers over how much information about witnesses and their statements could be made public before the trial. That disagreement, which had been going on for weeks, was one of several that piled up in front of Cannon and slowed the pace of the trial against Trump — one of four lawsuits he faces.

The case remains without a firm date for trial, although both sides have said they could be ready this summer. Cannon, who previously faced intense criticism over his decision to grant Trump’s request for an independent arbitrator to review documents obtained during an FBI raid at Mar-a-Lago, made clear expressed continued skepticism about the government’s prosecution theory, saying Tuesday that the case has raised “still developing and somewhat confusing questions.”

By reconsidering an earlier order and siding with prosecutors on protecting witnesses’ identities, Cannon likely avoided a dramatic escalation of tensions with Smith’s team, which last week called a separate order from the judge of “fundamentally flawed”.

The issue surfaced in January when defense attorneys filed, in partially redacted form, a motion seeking to compel 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 by accusing Trump.

Defense attorneys requested permission to file the motion, which included attached information they had obtained from prosecutors, in mostly unredacted form. But prosecutors objected to releasing the motion because it would reveal the identity of any potential government witnesses.

Cannon then granted the defense’s request that the motion and its exhibits be filed in unredacted form as long as the witnesses’ personal identifying information remains sealed. Smith’s team asked him to reconsider, saying witnesses could be exposed to threats and harassment if they were publicly identified.

In agreeing Tuesday that the witnesses’ names remain redacted, she wrote: “While it is clear that the Special Prosecutor could and should have raised his current arguments previously, the Court chooses, after a full review of these newly raised arguments . , to reconsider its previous order.

Still, the order was not a complete victory for prosecutors.

Cannon denied a request from Smith’s team to seal from pretrial motions the substance of all witness statements, except for information that could be used to identify witnesses.

“As for legal authority, the cases cited in the special prosecutor’s filings do not support this sweeping request; nor do they appear to have been proposed as such,” Cannon wrote. “And based on the Court’s independent research, granting this request would be unprecedented: The Court cannot locate any case – high-profile or otherwise – in which a court has allowed anything vaguely similar to the sweeping relief sought here.