Chutkan denies Trump motion to strike Jan. 6 language from indictment

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan denied a motion Friday by former President Trump to strike some language about Jan. 6 from the indictment in special counsel Jack Smith’s case related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election.

In a late October filing, Trump’s legal team argued certain portions of the indictment “include repeated references to the actions of independent actors at the Capitol on January 6, 2021” and “does not charge President Trump with responsibility for any of these actions,” so therefore, they are “not relevant” and “prejudicial and inflammatory.”

“Therefore, the Court should strike these allegations from the Indictment,” Trump’s team argued. 

Smith pushed back on Trump’s argument of the portions being “prejudicial and inflammatory” in his own filing earlier this month.

“The allegations in the indictment are not unduly prejudicial or inflammatory,” Smith said in an early November filing. “In fact, evidence of the attack at the Capitol on January 6 is powerful and probative evidence of the defendant’s conduct, motive, and intent. The Court should deny the defendant’s motion.”

On Friday, Chutkan denied the former president’s motion to strike the portions from the indictment. In her ruling, she pushed back against the late October motion as well as another filing by Trump’s legal team in relation to his motion. 

“Regardless of whether the allegations at issue are relevant, Defendant has not satisfied his burden to clearly show that they are prejudicial,” Chutkan said in her ruling.