Two rulings issued minutes apart by two federal judges, Tanya Chutkan and Aileen Cannon, on whether prosecutors can provide summaries of crucial documents to Mr. Trump rather than the documents themselves spotlight divergent attitudes over how much to trust Special Counsel Jack Smith.

Both orders concerned classified documents, which are at the core of the Mar-a-Lago case against Mr. Trump presided over by Judge Cannon and are involved to a lesser extent in the January 6 prosecution overseen by Judge Chutkan. Both jurists were asked to ponder to what extent the defendant — Mr. Trump — is owed access to the actual evidence against him.

At issue is how to handle material that, in Judge Chutkan’s description, implicates the “government’s national security and classified information privilege.” The Supreme Court has held, in a case from 1957, that the possibility that such evidence would leak is so dangerous that it is only available to the defendant if it is “relevant and helpful.”

Six years later, in Brady v. Maryland, the high court would hold that the government is obligated to turn over any evidence that is material and could potentially exonerate the defendant. It found that duty to be rooted in the 14th Amendment’s promise of the due process of law. The exception for classified material remained.       

Judge Chutkan holds that Mr. Smith’s “proposed summary” of the classified information “adequately describes any content of the withheld materials that could be considered relevant and helpful to the defense.” It appears that the documents in question are so sensitive that Judge Chutkan’s order covers not just the records themselves, but any related filings or motions. 

A different approach is taken by Judge Aileen Cannon in the Mar-a-Lago case, where Mr. Smith is charging Mr. Trump with dozens of counts of violating the Espionage Act, one of the statutes that governs the disposition of sensitive materials. Some of those counts relate to the retention of documents marked “top secret,” and others to national security and defense information. 

Judge Cannon, though, appears less trusting of Mr. Smith’s powers of paraphrase. She writes that she “cannot agree” with an interpretation of precedent that would allow prosecutors to generate summaries for Mr. Trump rather than have him and his attorneys lay eyes on the filings themselves. She calls the special counsel’s arguments “expedient” and “at odds” with the “plain meaning” of the relevant statutes. 

The Florida jurist does not put it outside the realm of possibility that Mr. Smith will, in the fullness of time, be able “to make the required showing to authorize deletion or substitution of discoverable classified information.” She maintains, though, that he has not yet done so at this early juncture. 

The bar is high for Judge Cannon because she holds that the laws governing how classified material is treated at trial do not “weaken or broaden a criminal defendant’s rights or to alter pre existing standards related to the use or admissibility of information in such cases.” That, she asserts, is constitutional bedrock. 

Despite accusing Mr. Smith of a “blithe” disregard for the rights owed to a defendant, Judge Cannon insists that nothing in her ruling “shall be construed to minimize the importance of protecting and avoiding disclosure of classified information in this case or in any case.”