Earlier this week, Judge Tanya Chutkan denied Donald Trump’s motion to issue subpoenas to seven separate people and entities in the lead-up to the former president’s March 2024 trial in his federal election interference case. Those subpoenas were designed, Trump maintained, to obtain purportedly “missing” materials from the House Jan. 6 committee’s investigation as well as related correspondence and other documents, including those that Trump claimed would reflect where and how those materials were stored and/or if they were destroyed.
But citing a criminal defendant’s burden to prove that any documents sought through pretrial subpoenas are not only relevant but specifically identified, Chutkan rejected the motion in a seven-page order. Specifically, she observed that Trump already had all witness transcripts from the committee’s investigation — and that his bid for the other categories was so thinly supported, if not speculative, as to make his requests more akin to a “fishing expedition” than a good-faith effort to obtain admissible evidence.
These motions are the legal equivalent of hanging a cheerful sign that reads, “Gone fishing.”
Most defense lawyers would be chastened by a judge describing their quest for additional discovery as a fishing expedition. But most defense lawyers do not represent Trump, who responded only hours later with two additional motions. The first is a motion to compel specific categories of purportedly exculpatory information or impeachment evidence. The second is a motion to define the scope of the “prosecution team” so broadly that if granted, it would force the special counsel’s team to search for, collect and turn over records from a constellation of executive agencies as well as up, down and across the Justice Department. These motions are the legal equivalent of hanging a cheerful sign that reads, “Gone fishing.”
If you think I’m exaggerating, consider just three examples of what Trump argues he…
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