WASHINGTON — In a Monday night filing, attorneys in Donald Trump’s election subversion case requested permission to seek evidence supporting the former president's defense that the 2020 election was compromised and that he cannot be held responsible for instigating the violence at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
The motion to compel discovery from federal prosecutors reveals more of Trump’s likely defense during his criminal trial, scheduled to begin March 4, 2024, where he faces four charges related to his efforts to spread doubts about his 2020 electoral defeat and overturn the election in his favor.
A mob of his supporters then descended on the Capitol in a violent attempt to keep him in power.
Todd Blanche of Blanche Law, Trump’s defense attorney, wrote in the motion that the indictment and special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution are political efforts by President Joe Biden to tank Trump’s presidential campaign. He argued they are based on biased views about the integrity of the 2020 election.
“The problem with that approach is that President Trump and others — indeed, hundreds of millions of voters — are not obligated to accept at face value [Smith’s] politically motivated narrative,” Blanche wrote. “It was not unreasonable at the time, and certainly not criminal, for President Trump to disagree with officials now favored by the prosecution and to rely instead on the independent judgment that the American people elected him to use while leading the country.”
He left the question of whether Trump genuinely believed the election was stolen as a “matter for trial,” but argued that Smith has tried to withhold information that would support four prongs of Trump’s potential defense.
Those prongs include: That undercover infiltrators are responsible for the Jan. 6 riot, not Trump; that foreign actors like Russia stoked election fears, not just Trump; that the officials the government relies on in the intelligence community and law enforcement were biased against Trump in declaring the election secure; and that the investigation and witnesses included in the prosecution are shoddy and not credible.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, the Barack Obama appointee overseeing the case, will have to consider the wide swath of material requested — Trump provided nearly 400 pages of supporting exhibits as part of two motions totaling 69 pages — that would primarily go against the established facts throughout the government’s massive Jan. 6 prosecution.
In the 34 months since the Capitol riot, Chutkan and her fellow district court judges in Washington have presided over hundreds of cases stemming from the riot, where they have understood the 2020 election to be valid and Trump's having some role in the riot.
He urged his supporters to “fight like hell” or they wouldn’t “have a country anymore" at the Stop the Steal rally outside the White House before the riot began.
Earlier on Monday, Chutkan ruled against a request by Trump to subpoena the House Select Committee on the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol attack, where he sought supposed “missing records” such as transcripts and footage of witness testimony before the committee.
She ruled that the request seemed to be “a general fishing expedition” to find helpful evidence and noted that the special counsel had already provided either the written or recorded versions of each request.
As part of the Monday night filing, Blanche furthered claims that Smith’s prosecution is political and a way to secure Biden’s reelection campaign. He requested any communications between Smith and “members, relatives, or associates” of the administration. The request would include communications from the president's son, Hunter Biden, who is embroiled in his own legal woes and the subject of conservative conspiracy theories about corruption within the Biden family.
Blanche also requested records of interactions between the Justice Department and former Vice President Mike Pence. Blanche suggested that any of his testimony against Trump may have been elicited as part of a deal to avoid criminal charges related to the discovery of classified documents at Pence's home, following a similar discovery at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
The Justice Department closed its probe of Pence in June without charges.
To date, Trump’s case has centered on his words, as he and his lawyers have defended his actions at issue in the indictment as political speech protected by the First Amendment, while challenging a gag order in the case that is now before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
Monday’s request suggests that Trump’s defense at trial may instead focus on the established facts in the case by raising conspiracy theories surrounding the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 riot, likely part of an attempt to try the case in the court of public opinion.
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