Last night, the news broke that Judge Tanya Chutkan, the same judge who ruled Trump cannot claim executive privilege to deny the release of Jan. 6th documents, would not issue a stay against her own ruling. CNN's John Berman talked about the ruling with legal analysts Laura Jarrett and Elie Hoenig.
"Elie, I'm gonna put it in the Captain Obvious file. That the judge who ruled against Trump said she will not get in the way of her own ruling. The real question is, what happens now? The archive will be released tomorrow. Trump has 24 hours to stop it," Berman said.
"This is a legal nail-baiter," Hoenig said.
"It is Thursday morning. They come out tomorrow, on Friday. Trump's lawyers need to get to the court today, by the end of this show. By the way, they have been slow off the mark. This ruling came down Tuesday night. If you're a lawyer, you know this ruling is coming, have your papers ready and go in an hour later and say, okay, Judge, we would like you to stay it. She will say no.
"Here we are a day before. If they're lucky, the court of appeals will take the case and rule by tomorrow. That's not even a given. They have also cost themselves any opportunity to go through the court of appeals and then try the Supreme Court. So they're dragging their feet here, but they don't have time for it," he said.
"As much as as a nail biter it is, I agree with you," Laura Jarrett said.
"They're moving at sort of a slow pace for the gravity of what's at stake here. Because if the documents come out, the cat's out of the bag. By tomorrow afternoon, the documents will be in the hands of the committee. So there is no point in going to the court of appeals or the Supreme Court.
"I know you and I are in disagreement about what the courts are going to do here. You think the court will weigh in, in enough time. I don't think the time works in the former president's favor here. It's a truncated timeline. so many things would have to happen. There are too many different levels. I may be eating crow tomorrow, but we'll see.
"But the timeline is not in his favor."
