Judge denies Donald Trump motion to strike indictment language in election interference case

Nov. 17 (UPI) -- A U.S. District Court judge on Friday denied a motion from Donald Trump's legal team to prohibit some Jan. 6 language in one of the legal proceedings against the former president.

District of Columbia judge Tanya Chutkan dismissed Trump's motion, saying it contained "numerous and inflammatory and unsupported accusations of its own."

Trump was attempting to bar what his lawyers categorized as "inflammatory" language from the indictment against him related to the insurrection and riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Chutkan ruled that Trump's legal team did not prove the language was prejudicial to the former president, a legal threshold that must be met in order to have any part of the indictment removed.

In October, lawyers filed a motion to strike language from the indictment that included "repeated references to the actions of independent actors at the Capitol on January 6, 2021."

Trump had argued the language in the indictment that suggested he paved the way for the riot to take place by publicly claiming the results of the 2020 presidential election were false and that the voting procedure contained fraud was prejudicial.

Both claims remain unproven.

The indictment also contains language about the former president's insistence that then Vice President Mike Pence act to overturn the election's results, which Trump's lawyers had sought to exclude. Prosecutors have argued those assertions spurred Trump supporters to march on the U.S. Capitol.

"The allegations in the indictment are not unduly prejudicial or inflammatory," Special Counsel Jack Smith said in a court filing in November.

"In fact, evidence of the attack at the Capitol on January 6 is powerful and probative evidence of the defendant's conduct, motive, and intent. The Court should deny the defendant's motion."

Chutkan on Friday agreed with the prosecutor.

"Regardless of whether the allegations at issue are relevant, defendant has not satisfied his burden to clearly show that they are prejudicial," the D.C. judge wrote in her ruling.