Kind of a preview of how shell run her court and this case. And in deciding whether to grant Special Counsel jack smiths request for protective order limiting what the disgraced expresident can and cannot say publicly about the case, judge chutkan cuts through Talking Points like a hot knife through butter. On the First Amendment protections, they are so fond of citing, mr. Trump, like every american, has a First Amendment right to free speech. But that right is not absolute. Adding that without a protective order, the disclosure of discovery materials could lead to witnesses being harassed or otherwise interfering with a fair trial. What about the fact that trump is running for president. And chutkan did not mince words on that eithe saying, this is a criminal trial and i will not take into consideration the impact will have for have for a political came on either side. He will have all of the rights hesen tieptled to. The existence is not going to have any bearing on my decision. I i
Likely. Were following the legal and political implications. Plus a warning to Donald Trumps legal team from the judge overseeing the election interference case, saying more inflammatory statements will require a quicker start to the trial. We are live outside the court. And the death toll as they have yet to even start searching the hundred of burned out buildings. Well take you live to maui. Were following these major developing stories and many more all coming in right here to cnn news central. Another controversial investigation that could have some pretty big repercussions for 2024 is escalating. Today a Special Counsel was designated in the federal probe of hunter biden. Attorney general Merrick Garland named david weiss to the role. Weiss has been leading this investigation. Yes, he has. Hes been leading the investigation into hunter biden for the past five years, in fact. This week he asked himself to be elevated to that role of Special Counsel. Were following that in realtime.
this appointment confirms my commitment to provide mr. weiss all the resources he requests. it also reaffirms that mr. weiss has the authority he needs to conduct a thorough investigation and to continue to take the steps he deems appropriate independently based only on the facts and the law. now, it s not clear what led weiss to change his mind and decide he did need special counsel status. as you ll remember hunter biden had reached a plea agreement with weiss office in which he would have pled guilty for two misdemeanors for not paying taxes on time as well as an agreement on a gun possession charge. that fell apart in court last month after a judge asked a number of questions and said she wasn t ready to sign off on it. hunter biden s team had until today to weigh in private where they were in negotiations on whether they were going to revive this plea deal or not, and hunter biden s team had
so was weiss, he had the independence he needed to bring another charge. so a third reason that makes this appointment anomalous, is that he has all of this authority any way. one final point is the breakdown, with the judge was kind of a unforced error by biden and the doj because they pushed together the diversion agreement with the guilty pleas and that made the judge understandably say, i can t administer this diversion agreement, whether you bring charges, that is something for the executive, not for me. so it is really a messy situation. but you can t help but think that when there was the big controversy, even though it was basically misunderstood and even phony, that led weiss eventually to say, and everyone the number one point is where tom starts, everyone thought this had been completed an put to bed and that led weiss to say on tuesday, i would like the authority and therefore he