A D.C. based federal judge has reinstated a gag order against former President Donald Trump which the 45th president was quick to blast as blatantly unconstitutional.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, late Sunday, ordered Trump not to attack federal prosecutors, court staff and potential witnesses involved in the legal proceedings over his alleged efforts to interfere with the 2020 election.
It’s fair to say the real-estate mogul was not pleased by the order.
“The Obama appointed Federal Judge in D.C, a TRUE TRUMP HATER, is incapable of giving me a fair trial. Her Hatred of President DONALD J. TRUMP is so great that she has been diagnosed with a major, and incurable, case of TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME,” the former president said Monday via his Truth Social platform.
Trump was indicted by a grand jury on four charges after an investigation by Special Counsel Jack Smith’s team allegedly showed he was at the center of efforts to subvert the will of the voters following his defeat by President Biden.
Chutkan had previously issued the gag order, but issued a temporary stay while she considered a motion by Trump’s legal team to dismiss it pending an appeal and on grounds it would violate the First Amendment’s free speech clause.
In a nine-page order denying Trump’s motion, the judge didn’t necessarily disagree, but said those concerns were not valid in this circumstance.
“First Amendment rights of participants in criminal proceedings must yield, when necessary, to the orderly administration of justice,” she wrote.
“This court has found that even amidst his political campaign, Defendant’s statements pose sufficiently grave threats to the integrity of these proceedings that cannot be addressed by alternative means, and it has tailored its order to meet the force of those threats,” she wrote, citing the original gag order.
According to the former president, the charges and subsequent gag order come about at the direction of the man he will most likely face in another general election and in an attempt to prevent Trump from conducting a campaign. Trump warned the sitting president over the precedent he sets.
“The Corrupt Biden Administration just took away my First Amendment Right To Free Speech. NOT CONSTITUTIONAL! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” he wrote.
“You’re setting a BAD precedent for yourself, Joe,” Trump declared.
Within hours of Chutkan declaring Trump is subject to her limited gag order, he took aim at a potential witness, former Attorney General Bill Barr.
“I called Bill Barr Dumb, Weak, Slow Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy, a RINO WHO COULDN’T DO THE JOB. He just didn’t want to be Impeached, which the Radical Left Lunatics were preparing to do. I was tough on him in the White House, for good reason, so now this Moron says about me, to get even, “his verbal skills are limited.” Well, that’s one I haven’t heard before. Tell that to the biggest political crowds in the history of politics, by far. Bill Barr is a LOSER,” he wrote.
This, and posts that were still on Trump’s social media pages about his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, violate the order, according to legal experts.
Trump still has posts about Meadows & Bill Barr on Truth Social–a continuing violation of the reimposed gag order. https://t.co/NSq2KriaRJ
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) October 30, 2023
“Trump still has posts about Meadows & Bill Barr on Truth Social — a continuing violation of the re-imposed gag order,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance wrote.
