Despite much protesting by Donald Trump’s lawyers, a trove of evidence gathered by Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith was released Friday. Its contents shed more light on the former president’s political calculations around his legal troubles than on the actual case.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ordered the publication of four massive volumes of transcripts, emails and other investigative materials gathered by federal prosecutors over the past two years. The vast majority of the 1,889 pages released Friday were marked “SEALED” and left blank, including some of what could have been the most damning evidence to date.
What was visible consisted mostly of the transcripts of interviews conducted by congressional investigators with the House Jan. 6 Committee, which were already made public nearly two years ago.