Jan. 6 prosecutors ask for protective order; cite threatening Trump post
The federal prosecutors overseeing the indictment of former president Donald Trump on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election asked a judge Friday night to impose a protective order over the discovery evidence in the case, citing a threatening message that Trump had posted on social media.
By mentioning the incendiary post in an otherwise routine request seeking to keep Trump from making evidence public, the prosecutors in the office of the special counsel, Jack Smith, were drawing the attention of the judge, Tanya Chutkan, to Trump’s long-standing habit of attacking those involved in criminal cases against him.
Hours later, Trump’s campaign responded with a statement calling the post “the definition of political speech.” The statement suggested that the post had not been directed at anyone involved in the election interference case, saying it was meant for Trump’s political adversaries.
The exchange of words began Friday evening when Trump posted a message on Truth Social, his social media platform, issuing a vague but strongly worded threat.
“IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” he wrote.
Shortly after, in a standard move early in a criminal prosecution, the government filed its request for a protective order in the case to Chutkan. Prosecutors noted that protections over discovery were “particularly important” in this instance because Trump “has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”
After the government’s filing, Trump’s campaign issued a statement with no aide’s name attached, insisting he was practicing his First Amendment rights.
That Trump is a political candidate exercising free speech is going to be an element of his defense in the latest case against him.
Trump’s campaign Friday also posted on X, the site formerly known as Twitter, a 60-second ad describing the prosecutors who have considered cases against him as the “fraud squad” acting on behalf of President Biden.
The ad is one of Trump’s most aggressive denigrations of the prosecutors, whom he has consistently denounced. He has also promised that if elected, he would appoint a “real” special prosecutor to investigate Biden and his family, proposing to eliminate the post-Watergate norm of Justice Department independence.
Chutkan, who was randomly assigned the case when the indictment was filed, ordered Trump’s lawyers on Saturday to respond with any objections to the government’s request by 5 p.m. Monday.
But that occasioned yet another dispute between Trump’s legal team and prosecutors.
First, John Lauro, one of Trump’s lawyers, filed court papers to Chutkan, asking her to push back the deadline to object to the protective order until Thursday. Smith’s team shot back, telling Chutkan that the government needed the order in place to start handing over discovery evidence and accusing Lauro of seeking to delay the process.
By the end of the day, Chutkan denied the request for a delay, leaving Lauro to meet the Monday deadline.