A Trump gag order should be in the election interference case
A civil liberties brief on Trump’s visit to the White House and the case against a judge’s interference with the state of the art
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief wednesday that said voters have the right to hear what Trump says as he tries to return to the White House in four years. The judge’s order is not essential to protection of justice, according to the civil liberties group.
The trial is scheduled to start in March of 2024, but it might be delayed after Trump lawyers launched an attempt to overturn the gag order. The gag order was paused while she waited for another legal filing.
“Undisputed testimony cited by the government demonstrates that when Defendant has publicly attacked individuals, including on matters related to this case, those individuals are consequently threatened and harassed,” the judge wrote.
The American Civil Liberties Union warned that limiting Trump’s remarks about special counsel Smith and his prosecutors risks emasculating a debate about how public officials are doing their jobs. The lawyers urged the court to “exempt public officials from the coverage of its order, except to the extent that it bars speech that threatens or instigates violence against, such persons.”
“In the context of the order, it could mean something as innocuous as ‘name’ or ‘identify,’ or something much more violent,” they wrote. One could potentially target someone for physical violence or death.
At a court hearing earlier this month, prosecutor Molly Gaston reminded Judge Chutkan that a Texas woman had been arrested for issuing violent threats against the judge. Trump was fined $5,000 in a civil fraud case in New York for failing to take down a baseless post that attacked a judge’s law clerk.
Reply to the Comments on Meadows’s Proposal for a U.S. Supreme Court Insight into a Civil Fraud Trial
The government’s filing shows that Trump was referring to people who would make that deal, but they were weaklings and Cowards. Who really knows, but I do not think thatMarkMeadows is one of them.
Smith says that Trump also commented on Meadow’s credibility and anticipated testimony in a press conference at a New York state courthouse where the former president faces a civil fraud trial.
“If the reporting was true, the Chief of Staff had lied and had been coerced, and the defendants sent a clear public message to him, intended to intimidate him,” Smith writes.
More broadly, Smith argues that the restrictions the court imposed were narrow and necessary to safeguard the court proceedings and protect witnesses from intimidation and threats. He also says that Trump has not shown a likelihood of success on appeal, or that the public interest weighs in favor of a stay.
