By Andrew Goudsward
A recent ruling in Washington denied former President Donald Trump‘s request to access records from the congressional investigation of the January 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol. The former president sought these records as he believed they could be relevant to his defense against allegations of election interference. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan found that Trump “has not sufficiently justified his requests” for information related to the House probe, which concluded in 2022.
Trump’s attorneys had requested materials that they claimed were “missing” from the House investigation, including transcripts and video recordings of interviews with law enforcement officials. However, the judge concluded that Trump had already received written transcripts of these interviews, and his attorneys failed to demonstrate the relevance of video footage of the same conversations to his defense.
The case against Trump, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, involves charges of illegally attempting to overturn the 2020 election results. It is one of four criminal cases facing Trump, who is considered the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.
Additionally, new information about a January search warrant issued to Twitter, now known as X, for information on Trump’s account has been made public following a separate ruling. The warrant sought details on all electronic devices that accessed Trump’s account between October 2020 and January 2021, as well as the content of direct messages sent and received from the account, according to court filings. Trump’s Twitter account was suspended after the 2021 riot at the Capitol, but the suspension was lifted in November 2022 after the platform was taken over by CEO Elon Musk.
Prosecutors convinced a judge to prevent Twitter from informing Trump about the warrant, despite the company’s opposition to the move. Additionally, Trump is set to testify for a second time in his ongoing civil fraud trial in New York on December 11.
In his previous testimony on November 6, Trump denied allegations by the New York attorney general that he inflated his net worth to deceive lenders.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward, additional reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Scott Malone and Stephen Coates)
