Donald Trump Facing ‘Karma’ in Judge Chutkan’s Jack Smith Case—Attorney

Amid Donald Trump’s federal election subversion case where Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Jack Smith recently filed a legal brief that lays out new evidence, attorney and legal analyst Glenn Kirschner said on Friday that “karma hangs heavy in the air” for the former president.
Smith filed a sealed 180-page brief on Thursday containing the government’s evidence against Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to four felony charges related to attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election and to the January 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot that followed.
The special counsel submitted a motion on Friday to publicly release the evidence while redacting some information, such as the names of witnesses who could be “intimidated and threatened” by Trump supporters.
Smith’s proposal would include the release of “quotations or summaries of information” from sensitive sources like “grand jury transcripts, interview reports, or material obtained through sealed search warrants.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, gave Trump’s legal team on Friday a deadline of October 1 to respond to Smith’s motion and a deadline of October 10 to respond to the motion’s appendix.
Kirschner, a former assistant U.S. attorney and frequent Trump critic, spoke in a YouTube video on Friday about the deadlines the judge gave.
“Karma hangs heavy in the air. Why do I say that? Well, given two deadlines that Judge Tanya Chutkan just set in Donald Trump’s federal election interference case in Washington, D.C., it now looks like we may see the evidence of Donald Trump’s January 6 crimes as early as October 2,” Kirschner said.
He added: “I just read something that Judge Tanya Chutkan dropped on the public record, it’s called a minute order and its two sentences long, but it is potentially a game changer. Now we know for the first time when we might see the evidence of Donald Trump’s democracy busting January 6 crimes.”
Newsweek has reached out to Trump’s spokesperson via email for comment.
This comes as the 2024 election draws closer with Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, facing off against Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, in November.
Trump has repeatedly accused Smith of attempting to “interfere” in this year’s election. His legal team said in its objection to the brief this week that if the evidence is filed publicly, it “will undoubtedly enter the dialogue around the election.”
However, the presiding judge said in her decision on Tuesday that Smith’s brief, contrary to the defense’s argument, is “simply how litigation works,” and pushed back on Trump’s claim that releasing the new evidence to the public could influence “potential witnesses and taint the jury pool.”
Smith’s brief will highlight Trump’s actions as a candidate, not as president, in the aftermath of the 2020 election, a response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in July that found the former president immune from facing criminal charges related to his official duties in office.
Chutkan will have the final say on how much of Smith’s evidence against Trump will be released to the public, although it is likely that a redacted version of the brief could come before Election Day, which is November 5.