Trump lawyers ignore judge’s instructions as they request date for hearing

Donald Trump ‘s lawyers appeared to ignore the judge’s orders in their latest filing in the case related to the former president’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election. Special counsel Jack Smith and the Trump defence team submitted their suggestions for when a hearing may be held on a proposed ‘protective order’. Last week, the special counsel’s office requested an order restricting what Mr Trump can share about the case. The judge ordered that a date between 9 and 11 August be agreed upon. The special counsel said his team would be available on any of those days while Mr Trump’s team ignored the judge’s order and suggested 14 or 15 August, CBS News noted. In a filing on Monday night, the special counsel office wrote that Mr Trump was attempting to ‘litigate this case in the media’. This came after Mr Trump objected to the proposal that public discussion of the discovery evidence in the case be restricted. ‘The defendant’s principal objection to it-as defense counsel stated publicly yesterday, and in conference with Government counsel-is that it would not permit the defendant or his counsel to publicly disseminate, and publicize in the media, various materials obtained from the Government in discovery,’ the office wrote. ‘But there is no right to publicly release discovery material, because the discovery process is designed to ensure a fair process before the Court, not to provide the defendant an opportunity to improperly press his case in the court of public opinion.’ The filing came shortly after Mr Trump’s attorneys requested that the judge in charge of the case give permission to the ex-president to use large parts of the discovery materials in the case during his campaign to return to the White House. Over the course of 13 pages, the attorneys responded to the government’s motion for a protective order banning Mr Trump from sharing any of the material that is set to be handed over by the prosecution during the pre-trial discovery process. Mr Trump faces charges of conspiracy and obstruction of an official proceeding. The defence lawyers argued that the standard protective order would mean that the judge, Tanya Chutkan, would be able to ‘censor’ Mr Trump and put in place ‘content-based restrictions’ on his ‘political speech’. Prosecutors pointed to Mr Trump’s frequent ‘public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him’. They had asked the judge to impose an order barring Mr Trump from sharing discovery materials ‘directly or indirectly to any person or entity other than persons employed to assist in the defense, persons who are interviewed as potential witnesses, counsel for potential witnesses, and other persons to whom the Court may authorize disclosure’.