Judge blocks Trump’s request to probe DHS claim that 2020 election was ‘most secure’ in history

A federal judge has shot down former President Donald Trump’s attempt to get details on how Homeland Security’s cybersecurity agency deemed the 2020 election the “most secure in American history,” saying it was too much of a fishing expedition.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan is overseeing the criminal case against Mr. Trump and his behavior surrounding the last election.

One element of the case is Mr. Trump’s insistence that some of the 2020 vote was fraudulent. Special counsel Jack Smith, prosecuting the case, says the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency has rejected those claims and concluded there was “no evidence any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Mr. Trump sought to compel the government to turn over draft versions of that Nov. 12, 2020, statement, believing earlier iterations weren’t as forceful.

His lawyers also argued that at the same time CISA was assuring the safety of the election, it was warning about the Russia-backed SolarWinds hack that struck thousands of organizations, including some parts of the U.S. government. They suggested that would undercut CISA’s blanket statement about the election.

But Judge Chutkan said that was too much of a leap.

“Defendant presents nothing more than speculation that any earlier drafts and communications about revisions of the 2020 CISA Statement will undermine its final conclusions,” she wrote in an order earlier this week. “He identifies no link between the SolarWinds attack and the compromise of any election systems, or even the 2020 election in general. Consequently, there is no indication that the Statement’s revisions — or communications about them — would be favorable to Defendant or otherwise material to preparing his defense.”

The order came as Mr. Trump and Mr. Smith are arguing over discovery, or the process of pursuing information ahead of a trial.

Mr. Smith last month filed with the court a massive document detailing evidence he plans to use against Mr. Trump.

The special counsel argued that Mr. Trump was warned by campaign staff that the 2020 election would be close and that mail-in ballots would likely be tabulated after Election Day — and that those would mostly favor his opponent, Joseph R. Biden.

“Privately, the defendant told advisors … that in such a scenario, he would simply declare victory before all the ballots were counted and any winner was projected. Publicly, the defendant began to plant the seeds for that false declaration,” it said.

Mr. Trump has complained about the filing and its public release so close to the 2024 election, where he is seeking to regain the White House.

“I didn’t rig the 2020 Election, they did!” Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social earlier this month. 

• Stephen Dinan contributed to this report.