Judge Chutkan denies Trump's request to subpoena additional Jan. 6 evidence

Former President Donald Trump's legal teams continue to fight on multiple fronts to protect their client from convictions on some 92 total charges.

According to The Hill, Trump's lawyers are using every possible legal avenue to do that, including requesting the ability to subpoena Jan. 6-related evidence to use in his defense in a related case.

Unfortunately, Judge Tonya Chutkan, who is overseeing the federal case brought against Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith, denied the request.

Chutkan indicated in her ruling that Trump failed to meet the legal bar required to have the power to subpoena the materials -- materials Trump and his lawyers claim they deserve to be shown.

The judge went as far as calling the request a "fishing expedition."

"The broad scope of the records that Defendant seeks, and his vague description of their potential relevance, resemble less ‘a good faith effort to obtain identified evidence’ than they do a general ‘fishing expedition’ that attempts to use the [Rule 17(c) subpoena] as a discovery device,’" the judge wrote.

JUST IN: Judge CHUTKAN rejects Trump's effort to subpoena "missing" records from the Jan. 6 committee, noting that they don't actually appear to be missing.

The request resembles a "fishing expedition" she said.https://t.co/hZL4pH7YkO pic.twitter.com/xcHjIyhfNB

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) November 27, 2023

Trump and his lawyers claim that the Jan. 6 panel's final report was not completed, and thus they deserve to have a chance to see the entirety of the report as it relates to the case brought against him.

The Hill noted:

An October filing from Trump repeated a disputed claim that the former House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 riot failed to turn over all the evidence it collected. Trump sought to subpoena Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), who led the nine-member panel, as well as several other government officials over what Trump’s attorneys deemed “missing materials.”

"The Select Committee did not archive temporary committee records that were not elevated by the Committee’s actions, such as use in hearings or official publications, or those that did not further its investigative activities. Accordingly, and contrary to your letter’s implication, the Select Committee was not obligated to archive all video recordings of transcribed interviews or depositions," Thompson said earlier this year.

Trump's lawyers argued otherwise, and believe that there is still related material that needs to be reviewed.

"President Trump is fully entitled to seek the Missing Records by subpoena. It is also equally important to determine if these records have been lost, destroyed, or altered," the former president's lawyer wrote.

Regardless, Trump maintains that he's innocent and did nothing wrong on Jan. 6.

He and others who support him insist that Smith's indictment, and all of the rest, are nothing more than a weaponization of the justice system to target a political opponent.