Trump Throws Tantrum Over Nothing Burger Special Counsel Disclosures

That’s it? That’s what Donald Trump’s lawyers threw such a tantrum over?

This afternoon, Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed the redacted Appendix to the special counsel’s immunity brief in the election interference case. It is 1,889 pages, the vast majority of which are sealed. What is unsealed is a heavily redacted version of documents already in the public domain, largely transcripts from the January 6 Select Committee and Trump’s own tweets. And while Special Counsel Smith used the brief itself to weave a damning narrative about the former president’s efforts to overturn the last election, the four-volume appendix, at least in its public form, is simply a few pages of disjointed snippets among upwards of 1,000 pages that simply say “SEALED.”

It’s not even a nothing burger — it’s a diet nothing burger.

Fittingly, the only new episode involves a valet getting Trump a Diet Coke at approximately 1:21pm on January 6, 2021, and apologizing that the recording of his speech on the Ellipse cut off because the networks switched over to covering the riot unfolding at the Capitol.

It was “sir, they cut if off because they’re rioting down at the Capitol.” … And he was like, “What do you mean?” I said, “It’s, like, They’re rioting down there at the Capitol.” And he was like “Oh, really?” And then he was like “All right, let’s go see.”

This makes it all the weirder that Trump’s lawyers threw such a pointless hissy fit about the documents being released on a Friday in October when everyone is preoccupied with the election anyway.

Yesterday, on the seventh day of the seven-day stay Judge Chutkan gave Trump and his lawyers to pursue their “litigation options,” they filed a motion to continue the stay until November 14, when Trump’s own rebuttal is due to be released. The court had already rejected multiple requests to do just that, making clear that she would not consider the exigencies of the political calendar in this case. Trump’s counterargument was essentially, “but, your honor, have you considered the exigencies of the political calendar as a matter of public interest?”

“[L]imiting the public’s access to only one side of this important debate, even temporarily, would grievously harm its understanding of this case,” he mumbled.

The court responded by pointing out that, once again, Trump and his counsel had failed to engage with the actual legal standard for rebutting the assumption in favor of public access to court records. The judge also noted that, if Trump is so worried about presenting “simultaneous releases” to ensure that “the public fully understand the arguments and documents on both sides of this momentous issue, and is not misled by one-sided submissions,” he’s perfectly free to turn in his homework early.

But she was most indignant at the suggestion that doing her job amounted to “political interference,” and so to counter the appearance that she was timing her rulings to impact with the election, she should schedule her rulings around the election.

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. The court will therefore continue to keep political considerations out of its decision-making, rather than incorporating them as Defendant requests.

This morning she ordered the heavily redacted document unsealed, where it promptly broke PACER as thousands of reporters furiously tried to download thousands of blank pages at once.

Meanwhile, Trump’s screechman Stephen Cheung put out a statement howling that “Radical Democrats are hell-bent on interfering in the presidential election on behalf of Lyin’ Kamala Harris.”

“As mandated by the Supreme Court’s historic decision on Presidential Immunity and other vital jurisprudence, this entire case is a sham and a partisan, Unconstitutional Witch Hunt that should be dismissed entirely — as should ALL of the remaining Democrat hoaxes,” he went on.

Please don’t let them put in the paper that I got mad.

US v. Trump [Docket via Court Listener]

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.