Former president Donald Trump arrives at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, after appearing on the E. Barrett Prettyman U.S. Courthouse, Aug. 3, 2023.
Tom Brenner | The Washington Post | Getty Images
A federal judge on Tuesday scheduled a hearing for Friday morning on prosecutors’ request for a protective order within the criminal election case against former President Donald Trump.
Judge Tanya Chutkan set the hearing after Trump’s lawyers told her they desired to push the session into early next week, despite Chutkan having asked either side to supply her dates on or before Friday.
Prosecutors from the office of special counsel Jack Smith had told the judge they were available on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday for the hearing in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The session will cope with Smith’s request that Chutkan bar Trump from publicly revealing some evidence collected in the course of the criminal investigation.
The ex-president, who is not going to attend the hearing, is charged with 4 felonies related to his bid to reverse his loss within the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
Shortly before Chutkan scheduled Friday’s 10 a.m. hearing, Trump attacked her in a social media post, noting she was appointed to the judiciary by former President Barack Obama and claiming she had a conflict of interest within the case.
Earlier Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers and Smith’s prosecutors in a joint notice in court to the judge detailed their availability for the hearing.
The notice said that Trump wants each of his lawyers, John Lauro and Todd Blanche, to be present for the hearing.
“Todd Blanche isn’t available on Thursday, since he must appear for a court proceeding within the prosecution brought against the identical defendant, President Trump, by the Special Counsel” in federal court for the Southern District of Florida, the filing said.
“Mr. Lauro is accessible on Thursday, with a preference for a day setting,” the filing said.
“Nevertheless, since we lost Friday as an option, we’d respectfully request a setting on Monday (after 12:00 p.m.) or Tuesday (all day) to permit for each Mr. Blanche and Mr. Lauro to be present.”
It was not stated within the notice, or clear from other sources, why Friday was not “an option” for Trump’s lawyers, or why they may not meet Wednesday.
Trump has a decades-old history of attempting to drag out and complicate legal proceedings through procedural tactics and appeals. His camp has already shown an inclination to use that technique to his newest case.
Trump on Sunday said he desires to have the case transferred out of the District of Columbia, and Chutkan off the bench.
“THERE IS NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL WITH THE JUDGE ‘ASSIGNED,'” he wrote in a social media post that day.
Chutkan a day earlier had denied a bid by Lauro to delay a deadline for replying to the protective order request.
The opposite criminal case in Florida lodged by Smith accuses Trump of retaining a whole bunch of classified government records after he left the White House, taking steps to cover them from federal officials and attempting to destroy video evidence showing the documents being moved around his Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach.
Trump has pleaded not guilty in each federal criminal cases.
He individually is criminally charged in Latest York state court in Manhattan with falsifying business records in reference to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
