


A federal judge released a series of rules on Friday that former President Donald Trump must follow as he begins to review special counsel Jack Smith's evidence ahead of his criminal trial on allegations to subvert the 2020 election results.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan released a five-page protective order underscoring those rules Friday afternoon after Trump's attorneys sought to make amendments to the proposal brought by Smith's team.
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Prosecutors indicated on Friday that after the release of the protective order, they would begin sharing millions of pages of discovery.
Chutkan gave a small victory to Trump's lawyers during the hearing and ruled that the protective order will only cover material the Justice Department deems as sensitive, which prosecutors said Friday amounted to as much as a quarter of the total discovery evidence.
The judge handed favor to the DOJ in a request to designate witness interviews and recordings as "sensitive."
"Disclosure of any of those materials creates too great a risk that witnesses may be intimidated" or the jury pool be polluted, Chutkan said.
Chutkan also rejected a request from Trump's team to allow a broad array of people working with the defense team to view the discovery materials. She notably said any "unindicted coconspirators" could have access to these materials under the defense's broad definition.
"I live in Washington, anyone is a consultant," she said.
However, Trump himself is allowed to review the sensitive discovery materials, with conditions.
"Moreover, during any time that the defendant reviews Sensitive Materials outside of defense counsel's presence, the defendant must not have access to any device capable of photocopying, recording, or otherwise replicating the Sensitive Materials, including a smart cellular device," Chutkan wrote in the protective order.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges brought by Smith. On Thursday, prosecutors proposed an aggressive schedule that would put the former president on trial on Jan. 2, 2024, four days before the third anniversary of the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol and just before primary voting begins for the Iowa caucuses.
Lawyers for the former president face a deadline next Thursday to submit their proposal for the start of Trump's trial. The former president has suggested he wants the trial to begin after Election Day 2024.
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Chutkan is expected to address the schedule when attorneys meet back in D.C. for an Aug. 28 hearing.
Read the protective order in full below: