A federal judge barred the former president from “publicly targeting” witnesses, prosecutors, or court personnel.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Donald Trump’s trial on federal charges related to his attempted reversal of Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory, yesterday imposed a gag order that bars the former president from “publicly targeting” witnesses, prosecutors, or court personnel. Trump lawyer John Lauro vigorously opposed the order on First Amendment grounds, saying it would stop his client from “speak[ing] truth to oppression.” While that characterization exaggerates the order’s impact, constraining the speech of a criminal defendant, especially one who is in the midst of a presidential campaign, does raise largely unsettled constitutional issues.
Chutkan’s order was provoked by Trump’s habit of vilifying anyone who crosses him, including Special Counsel Jack Smith (“deranged”), the prosecutors he oversees (a “team of thugs”), and Chutkan herself (a “highly partisan” and “biased, Trump Hating Judge”). “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” Trump wrote on Truth Social after his indictment in this case. The next day, The New York Times notes, “a Texas woman left a voice mail message for Judge Chutkan, saying, ‘If Trump doesn’t get elected in 2024, we are coming to kill you, so tread lightly.'”
The Times sees that threat as evidence that “some of the former president’s more outrageous statements seem to have had real-world consequences.” Similarly, the Associated Press notes, “a top prosecutor on Smith’s team received intimidating communications after being singled out by Trump.”
Earlier this month, Justice Arthur Engoron, who is presiding over the New York civil fraud case against Trump, barred him from making personal attacks on court staff after Trump posted a photograph of Engoron’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield, alongside Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.). Trump mockingly called Greenfield “Schumer’s girlfriend.”
Trump also has gone after witnesses. “Before Georgia’s former Republican lieutenant governor, Geoff Duncan, testified before the Atlanta grand jury that later indicted Trump and 18 others,” The Wall Street Journal notes, “the former president warned him not to, calling him a ‘loser’ and a ‘nasty disaster’ on Truth Social.
