Donald Trump’s January 6 trial finally got underway again Thursday, and his attorneys have already managed to trip themselves up.
While deliberating the trial schedule, Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and John Lauro argued that they would need “significant time” to parse through what elements of the case would be unsealed, reported NOTUS’s Jose Pagliery.
But that’s not in line with what this same defense team recently accomplished. In July, days after the Supreme Court finally issued its immunity ruling that postponed the federal election interference trial by nearly a year, Blanche issued a whopping 52-page report—and U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan took notice.
“Congratulations Mr. Blanche!” Chutkan said with a smile, sending Blanche sinking into his chair while chuckling to himself.
But Trump’s team saw another avenue of attack: Lauro pressed that they would need to start from scratch because the superseding indictment was filed just last week. But Chutkan wasn’t having any of it.
“You say a new indictment, but it’s a slimmed-down version. It’s not more, it’s less,” Chutkan told him.
The pared-down indictment largely focuses on Trump’s private and nonofficial actions, since the Supreme Court granted the former president broad immunity for official acts, thereby nixing them as evidence. As Lauro laid out his argument, it became clear that Trump’s team believed it could be entitled to new evidence in the case as a result, reported Pagliery.
“We have 14 million pages of documents,” Lauro told Chutkan. “We’re still getting discovery in this case … we need to look at this discovery with an eye toward the immunity issues now.”
Prosecutor Thomas Windham, however, explained that his team doesn’t “expect any more disclosures.”
Trump is not at the trial in person. The case hinges on the allegation that Trump knew he had lost the election but still tried to subvert the results, as proven by conversations he had with then–Vice President Mike Pence and his lawyers. Admissions by Trump from just this week—including that he lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden “by a whisker”—could further damn his chances at trial.
