Or, alternatively, trump can take his phone with him but his Defense Counsel has to babysit him to make sure he does not copy anything onto his phone. And if the defendant takes notes, regarding sensitive materials, the Defense Council must inspect those notes. It is sort of like the sats, only its all part of a federal criminal indictment. As the prosecution argued for that provision, they noted dryly and pointedly, trump has shown a tendency, a desire to hold on to material which he should not have. Yes, that is correct, trump was caught having taken more than 300 classified documents with him to his Florida Beach house when he left the white house. The reason this all had to be ironed out today is because Special Counsel smiths team is going to start handing trumps Team Evidence to review before they all go to trial. Those rules are part of a much larger protective order that judge chutkan ordered today, outlying what evidence trump cannot share from this case outside court. And we
Thank you for your coverage, my friend. You bet. Thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. Former President Donald Trump, former President Donald Trump got some marching orders today. The judge overseeing Special Counsel jack smiths case into trumps attempt to overturn the 2020 election, judge Tanya Chutkan, today she laid out some new rules for the former president , as far as the next phase of this criminal indictment. When mr. Trump want to go over sensitive evidence, like Witness Emails or Audio Recordings in his testimony, he is not allowed to bring anything into the room with him that could be used to copy that sensitive material. Like a smartphone, if trump is reviewing this material on his own. Or, alternatively, trump can take his phone with him but his Defense Counsel has to babysit him to make sure he does not copy anything onto his phone. And if the defendant takes notes, regarding sensitive materials, the Defense Council must inspect those notes. It is sort of like t
carrot and stick sort of situation where, you know, theoretically, in any other case, you would have that idea of potential contempt of court coming down. that is something here. but of course, you know, it is hard to imagine is getting into a scenario where the judge is actually going to lock-up donald trump pretrial. but that is potentially something that would go down the line. i do think that could be a better way of sort of enforcing this. judge chutkan saying, listen, the more you violate these, rules the quicker we will have to go here. there is a very logical reason for that. because future comments could spoil the jury pool and make it more difficult to get a fair trial going in here. of course, donald trump doesn t want this case to go to trial in d.c., but the rules in d.c. are, hey, we are going to try to see the jury. that has not worked in any of the january 6th cases i ve covered thus far, where that is just really been shot down and the voir dire process can actually wo
second. and as of today, we finally have an answer as to how judge chutkan will reprimand mr. trump if he does cross this line. quote, the more a party makes inflammatory statements about this case, which could taint the jury pool or intimidate potential witnesses, the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly. one of the main objectives of trump and his legal team so far has been to slow this trial down. today, the judge used that desire as both a carrot and a stick. the more trump breaks, judge chutkan s roles and talk about a case outside of court, the faster this thing will go to trial. that now that those ground rules have been put in place, the new and very urgent question is, how long until trump breaks them? joining me now to discuss all this is david errant, former prosecutor in the doj s national security vision, and a former manhattan assistant district attorney. and ryan reilly, nbc news justice reporter who was inside the courtroom for today s
president? i guess my question is, which do you think is more unusual in terms of staking out a position towards this 2024 presidential bid? it s unusual for a judge to have to take a position on the defendant running for president, of course. i think what we are seeing in d.c. is a reflection of the truth in every criminal case. the defendant has plenty other things to do and plenty other things going on in their life rather than show up in court, abide by court rulings, you know, obey the judges orders. but the judge is really having none of that in d.c.. and, you know, that is again playing it down the middle. there is been, i think, a little bit of flexibility given the realities of the position that the former president isn t and his needs to be able to speak. but when it comes to anything that would affect the fairness, the efficiency, witness safety, witness security, integrity of evidence, this judge is going