A US district judge for the District of Columbia said on Thursday that she won’t factor in the upcoming election when establishing the timeline for former President Donald Trump’s criminal case related to his alleged efforts to subvert the 2020 election results.
While it’s still unlikely Trump will see a day in court before November 5, the public may have the chance to see new evidence in the case, such as grand jury transcripts, before heading to the polls, legal experts told Business Insider.
“I think it’s quite possible that there will be some new information that will come out well before there will be actual trial testimony,” Robert Weisberg, a criminal law professor at Stanford Law School, told BI.
During a Thursday court hearing, Judge Tanya S. Chutkan set a timeline for several filings from the prosecutors and defense. In establishing deadlines, the judge made clear that the “court is not concerned with the electoral schedule,” The Washington Post reported.
One such deadline requests that special counsel Jack Smith’s team file a brief by September 26 on the former president’s immunity in light of a recent Supreme Court ruling that gave the president partial immunity for official acts he took while in office.
Alex Reinert, a criminal and constitutional law expert at the Cardozo School of Law, told BI that it’s possible those filings could include some new evidence.
“I expect there to be evidence we haven’t seen included in the filings,” he said. “I just don’t know that it will be publicly available or whether it will be only for the judge and the defense.”
Trump’s legal team had tried to keep evidence from being made public until after the election.
A representative for the former president did not immediately respond to a request for comment from BI.
Neama Rahmani, president of West Coast Trial Lawyers and a former federal prosecutor, said any new evidence proferred by the prosecution would most likely be part of the public record.
“If it’s part of these motions, the election doesn’t really matter,” Rahmani said. “It’s evidence that is part of a motion, so it should be public.”
Some pieces of evidence, however, could be put under seal or redacted at the judge’s discretion, Weisberg, the Stanford Law professor, told BI.
Rahmani said Trump’s defense attorneys will also likely try to block new evidence from being submitted, but they may not be successful.
Last month, Smith filed a superseding indictment in the case that removed some of the allegations that could be considered protected by presidential immunity.
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