Judge reinstates gag order in Donald Trump’s federal election interference case
Donald Trump was once again bound by the gag order in the federal criminal case charging him with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, after a judge on Sunday reinstated restrictions prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses.
The US district judge Tanya Chutkan also denied the former US president’s request to suspend the gag order indefinitely while his lawyers appealed.
Trump had been granted a reprieve when the judge temporarily lifted the gag order while she considered that request. Prosecutors argued last week that the order should be reimposed after Trump took advantage and posted a slew of inflammatory statements.
The statements included Trump’s repeated attacks on the special counsel Jack Smith, whom he called “deranged”, and Trump’s comments about the testimony that his former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows had provided to the grand jury during the criminal investigation.
Prosecutors argued that each of Trump’s statements were exactly the sort of comments that the order was designed to prevent, including intimidating or influencing witnesses who could wind up testifying against him at trial, and weighing on the substance of their testimony.
“The defendant has capitalized on the court’s administrative stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,” prosecutors said in their brief. “Unless the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not stop.”
In particular, prosecutors complained about Trump’s post on Meadows that questioned the credibility of his testimony and suggested that anyone who testified against him under limited immunity from prosecution – such as Meadows – were weak or cowardly.
Prosecutors also suggested that after Trump was fined $10,000 for flouting a similar gag order imposed in the civil fraud case brought by the New York state attorney general Laeticia James, Trump should also face consequences for assailing parties in the criminal case in Washington.
The back and forth over the gag order, which was initially put in place less than two weeks ago at a contentious hearing in federal district court in Washington after prosecutors first sought restrictions in a series of sealed court filings in September, has been a hard-fought legal battle for both sides.
Trump has angrily pushed back at attempts to constrain his public remarks about the case, calling them politically motivated. He has had his lawyers previously complain to the judge that prosecutors were infringing on his first amendment rights, especially as he campaigns for another presidential term.
The arguments from Trump lawyer John Lauro have partly focused on people like former vice-president Mike Pence, saying a gag order prevented Trump from engaging about January 6 on the debate stage. But that fell by the wayside when Pence dropped out of the 2024 race on Sunday.