Trump Opposes Government’s Proposed Protective Order in Jan. 6 Case
Published by The Lawfare Institute
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On Aug. 7, former President Donald Trump filed a response in opposition to the government’s motion for a protective order in United States of America v. Donald J. Trump in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
According to the government’s Aug. 4 motion, the Justice Department is seeking to “prevent the improper dissemination or used of discovery materials, including to the to the public,” and requests that the court impose restrictions on Trump’s and his counsels’ ability to disclose the materials or their contents “directly or indirectly to any person or entity” other than those directly involved in the case, as well as their ability to make copies of materials. (Trump’s defense team had filed a request to extend the Aug. 7 response deadline, which Judge Tanya S. Chutkan denied.)
In turn, Trump claims that the government’s proposed protective order—which would govern the discovery process in the case—would unlawfully restrict his access to “all documents produced by the government, regardless of sensitivity.” Trump argues that the government’s proposed order is overbroad, and claims that the government’s proposed order asks that court to censor and “impose content-based regulations” on his political speech, thus violating his First Amendment rights.
In the filing, Trump asks the court to adopt an edited version of the government’s proposed protective order, which he claims “narrows the Proposed Order to shield only genuinely sensitive materials from public view.”
You can read the filing here or below: