Trump's New Trial Plan Gets His Supporters Excited

A new legal filing in former President Donald Trump's 2020 election subversion case has enthused his supporters.

Trump's legal team said in a new court filing that it will present classified documents during Trump's federal trial related to January 6, showing evidence of foreign interference in the 2016 and 2020 elections.

"The indictment in this case adopts classified assessments by the Intelligence Community and others that minimized, and at times ignored, efforts by foreign actors to influence and interfere with the 2020 election," reads the filing submitted by Trump's legal team on Thursday. "President Trump will offer classified information at trial relating to foreign influence activities that impacted the 2016 and 2020 elections, as well as efforts by his administration to combat those activities."

In August, the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Trump with four criminal counts in Special Counsel Jack Smith's investigation of efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, leading to the Capitol riot on January 6 fueled by efforts of Trump allies and supporters to reject certifying the election won by President Joe Biden.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has scheduled a March 4, 2024, trial date for Trump, who has claimed without evidence that the election was stolen via widespread voter fraud. His legal team pushed for an April 2026 trial date that it said would not interfere with his presidential campaign and potential victory in the November 2024 election.

The former president's legal team also said the filing would also present classified information "relating to the biased and politicized nature of the intelligence assessments that he and others rejected during the events in question."

"Collectively, this evidence will undercut central theories of the prosecution and establish that President Trump acted at all times in good faith and on the belief that he was doing what he had been elected to do," they added.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's legal team via email for comment on Friday.

"This is ridiculous. ... The stuff that was rejected was this nonsense about [Venezuelan President] Hugo Chavez and satellites taking up information," Nick Akerman, former assistant special Watergate prosecutor and former assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, told Newsweek via phone. "This is all Sidney Powell stuff."

Powell recently pleaded guilty in the Georgia election tampering case. She made numerous unsubstantiated claims following the 2020 election, falsely alleging that proof of voting irregularities was located in a server in Germany.

She also claimed that voting software used by Georgia and other states was created at the direction of Chavez, who died in 2013. Powell also repeated the debunked claim that votes for Trump had probably been switched in favor of Biden.

Akerman surmises that the new filing on Trump's behalf is based on Powell's previous statements, along with claims by others in Trump's orbit, that foreign entities interfered with the accuracy of U.S. voting machines.

It's all part of a larger attempt to muddy the legal waters, he added.

"[Trump's] problem, of course, is that Powell is now cooperating and is a government witness," he said. "So, he's screwed and there's no way around that. She will blow that argument up."

"Looks like Trump is ready to turn the tables on DOJ/intelligence community," wrote Julie Kelly on X, formerly Twitter.

"Trump is going to expose how corrupt the FBI truly is," wrote a Trump supporter on the platform.

"The tables of the 'temple of democracy' need flipping," said another.

Some pointed out the irony perhaps of Trump attorneys offering classified documents related to one indictment while a complete other case involving the former president accuses him of unlawfully keeping classified materials in his home.

"So while under investigation for retaining and sharing classified documents in one case, in another he is going to reveal classified documents that he says we don't know about?" said one X user.

The Trump team's allegations of election interference could be considered a response to an October 2 court filing by Smith, which states that the charges against Trump in this case do not rely on classified material and that prosecutors do not intend to use or introduce such material at trial.

"Accordingly, the classified discovery issues are limited and tangential," that filing said.

A spokesperson for Smith's office told Newsweek via email that they have no comment.