Special counsel Jack Smith is asking the judge presiding over former President Donald Trump‘s criminal classified documents case to reconsider a ruling that would publicly disclose witness identities and their testimony, citing online threats that are now under federal investigation.
Smith asked U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon on Thursday to block Trump from attaching discovery evidence about the witnesses on the public court docket in the case, which concerns Trump’s alleged improper retention of classified records at his Florida resort home, Mar-a-Lago.
“That discovery material, if publicly docketed in unredacted form as the Court has ordered, would disclose the identities of numerous potential witnesses, along with the substance of the statements they made to the FBI or the grand jury, exposing them to significant and immediate risks of threats, intimidation, and harassment,” prosecutors argued, according to the 22-page filing.
Smith’s team wrote that online threats have already “happened to witnesses, law enforcement agents, judicial officers, and Department of Justice employees whose identities have been disclosed in cases in which defendant Trump is involved.”
The filing also noted that in two recent orders, Cannon has “denied the Government’s request to seal or redact certain material that was provided to the defendants in discovery.”
Cannon previously said the special counsel’s office did not provide a convincing argument for the information to remain sealed or redacted but that any information regarding national security could remain private.
Smith issued a separate filing on Wednesday in which he raised concerns about the threats and revealed that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is investigating them. In the Thursday filing, he argued that Cannon’s order risks revealing the identities of witnesses not expected to testify at trial who “would otherwise be able to retain their anonymity and privacy absent the Court’s Orders.”
The next hearings for Trump’s classified documents case are slated for Thursday and Friday next week, and Cannon has told Trump’s lawyers to respond to Smith’s request to keep the witness information and testimony under seal by Feb. 23.
Although Cannon has set a trial for the case to begin in May, she has indicated it could be pushed back to an unspecified date.
In light of special counsel Robert Hur’s report into President Joe Biden‘s handling of classified information found at his Delaware home, in which Hur said the sitting president would face no charges, Trump’s lawyers have signaled they will file several motions seeking to dismiss the superseding indictment in Trump’s case.
Trump’s counsel expects to “file motions on February 22 relating to, inter alia, presidential immunity, the Presidential Records Act, President Trump’s security clearances, the vagueness doctrine, impermissible preindictment delay, and selective and vindictive prosecution,” according to a Feb. 6 court filing.
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While such motions have been expected by the defense, Trump’s separate federal criminal case over an alleged election subversion plot has faced delays in the Washington, D.C., trial, which will no longer take place in March and could be delayed until at least the summer, depending on whether the Supreme Court will weigh Trump’s presidential immunity claims.
Trump faces 40 felony charges in Smith’s classified documents case, including 32 counts of willful retention of national defense information and violations of the Espionage Act.