First on CNN: Judge privately admonishes prosecutors for grandstanding at hearing for press dinner gunman
By Katelyn Polantz, CNN
(CNN) — A federal judge privately admonished prosecutors for attempting to grandstand Thursday at a detention hearing for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner gunman, according to a transcript obtained by CNN.
“I don’t know what’s going on here. I know that you want to present your case, I guess, to some audience other than the Court,” Magistrate Judge Moxila Upadhyaya told three prosecutors in the courtroom on Thursday out of earshot of the public and press. “I don’t want this to turn into a circus.”
Upadhyaya’s comments highlight a dynamic that has arisen in the six days since Cole Tomas Allen was taken into custody after a federal agent shot at him — with Trump administration officials aggressively describing their theory of the alleged attempted assassination of the president in news interviews and unsolicited court filings.
Several times, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro and others in television interviews have gone much further and given more definitive descriptions of the shooting than the detail that’s been represented in court from the FBI and Justice Department line prosecutors.
Secret Service Director Sean M. Curran on Thursday said Allen shot an officer at point-blank range. Pirro said on Fox News Thursday he fired at the Secret Service officer. Court filings describing the events have been less definitive.
At the hearing on Thursday, prosecutors were prepared in court to show new video and photos they had of the shooting, Allen’s weapons and of the hotel crime scene. Upadhyaya stopped them from doing this in court, because it was not needed after Allen’s lawyers said he agreed to remain detained while he awaited trial, she ruled.
Appearing annoyed, the judge then called the prosecutors and defense team to the bench to speak with them privately, where the judge continued to call out the Justice Department’s approach.
The exchange also highlights how early and incomplete the investigation still is.
“We’re five days into this investigation,” prosecutor Jocelyn Ballantine responded to the judge, according to the transcript. “As soon as we have finalized reports and discovery” — meaning evidence that the defense team can review — “that we’re in a position to be able to accurately provide to counsel, we will be doing that. We take our discovery obligations seriously.”
Ballantine then says the US Attorney’s Office wasn’t ready to discuss in open court the documents they have so far from the investigation.
Following the hearing, the US Attorney’s Office put into the court record and posted on social media the videos and photos they had prepared.
They said, in a letter to the judge, the Justice Department “now formally completes the record.”
The-CNN-Wire
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