The release of more information from special counsel Jack Smith's election interference investigation into former President Donald Trump in connection with the Jan. 6, 2021, protests will not likely impact the upcoming election, retired Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Friday.
"I don't think this is that big a deal," Napolitano told Newsmax's "Wake Up America," explaining that when the rest of the information is released, the focus will be on the names of Trump's alleged co-conspirators, and unless a "bombshell" is revealed, the news will probably fade away quickly.
Thursday, Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the election interference case in Washington, D.C., denied a request from Trump to prevent Smith's additional information from being released until after the election, saying that doing so could appear to be election interference.
Napolitano said that from the judge's perspective, the judiciary is a branch of the government and has a "level of transparency."
"The public is entitled to know what the judiciary is doing," Napolitano said. "The Constitution requires transparency, especially in criminal cases, and we shouldn't be concerned with what else is happening in society like a presidential election. This is the attitude of the court."
He further explained that Chutkan unsealed most of Smith's evidence after he refiled his charges against Trump in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling on presidential immunity, but the remaining documents, which she ruled could also be released, contain the names of 57 alleged co-conspirators, whose names were redacted.
"When that is unsealed, probably in the next two to three days, we'll find out who they are," said Napolitano. "We know that the government says Mark Meadows, and we know the government says Rudy Giuliani, but who the other 55 are, we don't know yet."
The release of the names will divert attention from Trump to the others listed in the indictment, he added.
And with the news cycle the way it is, Napolitano said, "I don't think it'll be much of a story by Monday."
Napolitano also discussed the $454.2 million civil fraud judgment reached against Trump in New York, after reports that justices in the state's appellate court were skeptical about the amount.
"I don't think the prosecutors will be sanctioned, but I think that that $500 million judgment will be radically, radically reduced," said Napolitano. "It is basically a punishment to the Trump Organization, a corporation that has many facets to it for keeping books inconsistent with the way the government says they should be kept. Well, it's not a public corporation. It's not one that you can buy stock in. So the people that own it were not affected by it."
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Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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