Unsealing of redacted filing offers limited look at evidence in Jan. 6 case against Trump

The judge overseeing Donald Trump's federal election interference case on Friday unsealed the redacted appendix of evidence gathered by special counsel Jack Smith, offering a glimpse of the evidence that could be seen by a jury if the former president's case goes to trial.

The highly redacted appendix is an attachment to the immunity motion filed earlier this month by Smith that included new details about Trump and his allies' actions leading up to the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol.

The majority of the appendix's 1,889 pages are redacted, and the remaining documents are largely comprised of public materials, including transcripts released by the House select committee on Jan. 6, court transcripts, Trump's social media posts, excerpts from Vice President Mike Pence's autobiography, and fraudulent electoral certificates signed by Trump's "fake electors."

The patchwork of evidence includes a portion of an interview between a former White House employee and an investigator from the House Jan. 6 committee regarding Trump's conduct when he learned of the riot at the Capitol.

According to the employee, Trump inquired why he could not watch the entirety of his speech at the Ellipse earlier that day.

"'Sir, they cut it off because they're rioting down at the Capitol.' And he was like, 'What do you mean?'" the employee said.

The employee told congressional investigators that he set up a television in the Oval Office dining room and brought Trump a Diet Coke while he watched his speech, which was interrupted by coverage of the riot.

"I said, 'It's like they're rioting down there at the Capitol,'" the employee said. "And he was like, 'Oh really?' And then he was like, 'All right, let's go see.'"

The unsealing of the appendix came a day after the judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, denied Trump's last-minute request to delay the release of the material until after the presidential election.

Chutkan, in Thursday's ruling, pushed back on Trump's argument that the release was politically motivated to influence the 2024 presidential election.

"There is undoubtedly a public interest in courts not inserting themselves into elections, or appearing to do so. But litigation's incidental effects on politics are not the same as a court's intentional interference with them," Chutkan wrote in her order.

"As a result, it is in fact Defendant's requested relief that risks undermining that public interest: If the court withheld information that the public otherwise had a right to access solely because of the potential political consequences of releasing it, that withholding could itself constitute -- or appear to be -- election interference," she wrote.

Trump last year pleaded not guilty to federal charges of undertaking a "criminal scheme" to overturn the results of the 2020 election in order to remain in power.

Smith subsequently charged Trump in a superseding indictment that was adjusted to respect the Supreme Court's July ruling that Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken as president -- a decision that effectively delayed any potential trial until after the November election.