Judge rejects Trump bid for US House Jan. 6 committee records

FILE PHOTO: An explosion caused by a police munition is seen while supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump riot at the U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, U.S., January 6, 2021. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

By Andrew Goudsward

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A judge on Monday rejected Donald Trump’s request to see records from the congressional investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, which the former president said may be relevant to his defense against election interference charges.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington found that Trump “has not sufficiently justified his requests” for information tied to the Democratic-led House of Representatives probe, which concluded in 2022.

Trump sought to subpoena materials that his lawyers said were “missing” from the House investigation, including transcripts and video recordings of interviews with law enforcement officials.

File photo: U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell and Metropolitan Police Department officer Daniel Hodges, who were both injured defending the Capitol and members of Congress on January 6, 2021, watch as the U.S. House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6 Attack on the U.S. Capitol begins what may be their final public hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., October 13, 2022. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz/File photo

The judge concluded that prosecutors had already given Trump written transcripts of those interviews and that Trump’s attorneys had not shown how video footage of those same conversations could be relevant to his defense.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he illegally sought to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election. The case, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, is one of four criminal cases facing Trump, the frontrunner for the Republican nomination in 2024.

Following a separate court ruling, Smith’s team on Monday made public new information about the January search warrant issued to Twitter, now known as X, for information on Trump’s account. The warrant sought information on all electronic devices that accessed Trump’s account between October 2020 and January 2021 as well as the content of direct messages sent and received from the account, according to court filings.

FILE PHOTO: Former U.S. President Donald Trump attends the Trump Organization civil fraud trial, in New York State Supreme Court in the Manhattan borough of New York City, U.S., October 25, 2023. Dave Sanders/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Trump’s Twitter account was suspended following the 2021 riot at the Capitol by his supporters. The sanction was lifted in November 2022 after the platform was taken over by CEO Elon Musk.

Prosecutors convinced a judge to bar Twitter from informing Trump about the warrant, a move the company opposed.

Trump is also set to testify for a second time in his ongoing civil fraud trial in New York on Dec. 11, his lawyers said Monday.

In defiant and rambling testimony on Nov. 6, Trump denied the New York attorney general’s allegations that he inflated his net worth to dupe lenders.

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward, additional reporting by Jack Queen; Editing by Scott Malone and Stephen Coates)