Judge Chutkan Issues Limited Gag Order on Trump in His D.C. Jan. 6 Case
“The order restricts Trump’s ability to publicly target court personnel, potential witnesses, or the special counsel and his staff.”
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a gag order on President Donald Trump that limits what he can say about the case in public:
The order restricts Trump’s ability to publicly target court personnel, potential witnesses, or the special counsel and his staff. The order did not impose restrictions on disparaging comments about Washington, DC, – where the jury will take place – or certain comments about the Justice Department at large, both of which the government requested.
“This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses,” Judge Tanya Chutkan said. “This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.”
“His presidential candidacy does not give him carte blanche to vilify public servants who are simply doing their jobs,” the judge added.
Chutkan did not say how she will enforce the gag order. Instead, the judge will “assess any consequences for Trump if and when he violates it.”
TRUMP REACYS:
NEW: Trump campaign reacts to gag order pic.twitter.com/Gt6LEqA5z3
— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) October 16, 2023
Does the gag order violate Trump’s right to free speech? Trump could challenge it:
There are two ways Trump could bring a First Amendment challenge to Judge Chutkan’s gag order. He could appeal it now, saying it is an unconstitutional prior restraint on his free speech rights in the abstract. Or, if he later says something that she decides crossed the line and she imposes a sanction, like fining him, he could appeal that punishment in the context of whatever he specifically said.
Special Counsel Jack Smith asked Chutkan for a gag order due to Trump’s “past actions.”
Smith and the DC elites don’t like that Trump doesn’t hold back. He won’t grovel and act as a subordinate.
So far, Trump hasn’t posted about the gag order on Truth Social. He wrote this yesterday:
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Comments
Actually he does have carte blanche. He’s an American.
From the decison: “There is no question that a court is entitled to draw restrictions on a def[endant]’s behavior and a def[endant]’s speech pending trial. You [Lauro] keep talking about censorship like the def[endant] has unfettered First Amendment rights. He doesn’t,”
OMG! What is the judge talking about? Yes, there is a question. A monumental question. The defendant absolutely has unfettered First Amendment rights. It’s in the freaking constitution. You, judge, must have surely read the constitution and know that that right is in there. The First Amendment does not say “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech (except if you are a defendant in a federal case)”. It says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech”
Read it and weep, judge. You are way out of line.
She’s a swamp dolt. What did anyone expect?
No, he does not have unfettered rights. There is indeed no question that a court is entitled to draw restrictions on a defendant’s behavior and speech pending trial. But only to the extent necessary to ensure a fair trial. Any restrictions must be narrowly tailored to that end. There is no compelling government interest in protecting the feelings or reputation of court staff or of the prosecutor and his staff. And even speech disparaging the reputation of potential witnesses, which could poison the jury pool, can only be restricted to the extent that the need to do so is more compelling than the defendant’s need to criticize the witnesses for reasons other than his trial, or in order to defend his own reputation. Intimidating witnesses is of course not protected speech, but that’s already illegal and doesn’t need enjoining.
Poison the jury pool…
In Washington, DC.
How could Trump do that?
you are wrong, Milhouse. A defendant is entitled to the same 1st amendment rights as are the rest of us,…If I can stand outside the Federal Court house and declare Chutkan a corrupt hack, so can any defendant
The first amendment does not trump the compelling need for fair trials. And to that end judges are entitled to impose narrowly tailored gag orders. That is firmly established law. But they must be narrowly tailored to that end; this order doesn’t seem to be.
Retired, Trump can’t do that, which is one reason why this order is not justified. But it is not true that judges categorically can’t make such orders; when there is a risk of the jury pool being poisoned, they can make such orders as are necessary and narrowly tailored to prevent that.
Ask him about the civil suit in NY where he defamed that crazy woman. Once a gag order is rendered, you do not have carte blanch to say or do what you like concerning the items mentioned in the order.
You mean the trial where that lying woman lied about Trump and couldn’t even remember when it happened?? HE was the one defamed.
this use to be America …. not so much any more ….
But court personnel palling around with Chuck Schumer is okay?
Um, yes. Why wouldn’t it be?
so, you’re OK with the woman whispering in the judge’s ear during trial being a political supporter of Trump’s opposition?
Everybody has a political opinion. You can’t disqualify court officers because of their politics.
When their politics are the only reason the case was brought, you can.
The court officer’s politics were not the reason the case against Trump was brought.
WOW. Silencing your opponent, as you are trying to put him in prison for things YOU are doing. Who would have ever thought this could happen in America. How disappointing.
Silly me, thinking that the First Amendment gives us such carte blanche.
True dat. It’s the Second Amendment whut does it.
The 2A bluff is being called.
This needs to go to the Supremes
Today!
The sclerotic justice system isn’t going to offer relief fast enough here. House needs to defund this lawfare.
I’ve been looking at the Trump filings, and seen a a tendency in the filings to essentially goad Chutkan into saying something that is so blatant that her bias cannt be denied. I suspect slowly the tactic is working.
ty… great point.. I hope you are right.
I’m shocked that Trump didn’t appeal her refusal to disqualify herself
Ding!
4-D chess?
Yet they have license to disparage to their hearts’ content, especially the judge herself. Police state in action.
Since when is the truth disparaging?
every day, if you are a Democrat
You’re right. I should have said sometimes the truth is disparaging. But I would have I thought that pathetic hack Jack Smith would have been used to disparaging remarks by now in his career.
I hope that either Trump appeals and has this illegal gag order rescinded, or in her face violates it and dares her to try to enforce it.
The judge has the same overreaction problem as Israel, curiously. Depending on depth of Trump’s civilian support, she’s likely to lose big or win big.
Overreaction? Israel? What do you call what Hamas did? A slap in the face?
It’s called a provocation.
a provocation like Pearl Harbor was one
There’s a back door to war theory that goes the other way, quote
According to this view, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, inhibited by the American public’s opposition to direct U.S. involvement in the fighting and determined to save Great Britain from a Nazi victory in Europe, manipulated events in the Pacific in order to provoke a Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, thereby forcing the United States to enter the war on the side of Britain.
And? Let’s suppose it was so. Not that he would have known where the attack would come, but that’s irrelevant. Let’s suppose he was deliberately provoking an attack, so he could join the war.
1. Was he wrong to do so?
2. The provocation having worked, and the attack having come, was declaring total war on Japan an overreaction?! Should he rather have just staged a few raids on a Japanese base and called it quits?!
It displays the logic of provocation meant to produce an overreaction. FDR’s “Day of Infamy” speech suggests he was primed to use the occasion too, to fire up the population.
Dumb comment. Israel is reacting, not overreacting. Overreacting would be to flatten Gaza without any regard, like Hamas and others would do if presented the chance.
Strategically you can produce more support for Hamas by too much reaction. Israel’s ongoing method has been taking out bits of Hamas when necessary to avoid exactly that effect.
Armchair analysis that neglects the reality of the situation.
It’s just political science.
Political science? Sounds more like garbage.
The war is to “impress” Hamas and Iran….. not public opinion which doesn’t protect anyone.
The public votes. That’s how the judge and Israel wind up with the same problem, from the Hamas provocation and the Trump provocation. If you come down too hard on Trump he gets more supporters instead of eliminating him.
The only public the Israeli government has to impress because it votes is the Israeli public. And it is likely to regard almost any Israeli response as an under-reaction.
International public reaction is irrelevant; Israel does not need the voting public’s approval, let alone its permission. If they think Israel has overreacted, tough luck.
And no, Israel does not need US aid; it’s nice, but not vital. The US aid is given primarily for the US’s own benefit, and Israel’s only secondarily. And there’s a good argument that it does Israel more harm than good, and Israel should refuse it.
The way to refute you and people like you is to show the raw footage of the video and pictures taken after the slaughter in Israel. There is no “Overreaction” to what Hamas did. A nuclear bomb would not be overreacting.
Overreaction is whatever produces more Hamas members than it removes, independent of any international law or for that matter Judaic law. That’s what the provocation is meant to produce.
Thorough area bombings in WWII just stiffened the populations’ resolve on both sides, an example of the effect Israel wants to avoid and there is all this theory about.
If you destroy Hamas you don’t have to worry about how much “support” it gets.
That’s what the Arabs understand about Israel, which is why they keep trying to destroy Israel despite the tsunami of public support that would trigger. They don’t mind the whole world holding parades in memory of “brave little Israel” and condemning its destruction; so long as they succeed in that destruction they’ll be happy. And that’s the lesson Israel needs to learn.
Militarily they can’t destroy Israel. They can only provoke it. So that’s not their strategy. They want Israel to destroy Israel.
So long as “civilians” give Hamas aid and comfort by giving them shelter, a place to hide, and a place to store weapons flattening Gaza is exactly what they should do. They should keep killing “civilians” until they get the message. Seize the funds of every Muslim charity and shut them down, as they are well known vectors of terror funding. Make the allegedly “moderate” Muslims pay the price for their religion (i.e. support of the mujahideen).
Morally, that would be destroying Israel. They’d no longer be Jews. They’d be ordinary radicals. And it wouldn’t even work.
Enragement is also an entertainment choice, social media knows. That’s how clickbait works.
Really? How would they no longer be Jews? Restraint in war is not a Jewish value. Nor is turning the other cheek. If the Israeli government were guided only by Jewish values, the Gaza strip would already be uninhabited.
Taking on the burdens of the other guy is Judaic. As I cited a couple of days ago
Commentary on Sanhedrin 98b-99a
“R. Nahman said: If he [the Messiah] is of those living [today], it might be one like myself, as it is written, and their nobles shall be of themselves , and their governors shall proceed from the midst of them. Jeremiah 30:21”
“We have just seen that the Messiah is the just man who suffers, who has taken on the suffering of others. Who finally takes on the suffering of others, if not the being who says “Me”?
– Levinas, Difficult Freedom: Essays on Judaism p.89
That the messiah will be someone who suffers for his people is based on Isaiah, and is cited in Sanhedrin 98b. I’m not sure what Rav Nachman’s statement has to do with it, but that’s the anonymous statement immediately before his. It’s got nothing to do with suffering for the enemy, or sympathy for the enemy, or restraint against the enemy. The Messiah will be someone who can’t sleep at night because Hamas still exists, not one who worries about the poor “civilians” in Gaza City.
so, Trump can either report that what his anonymous sources have told him abut the judge and/ Jack Smith
or have someone else say what he thinks
this works for the MSM, so why not Trump
That’s what I wondered. Have a warm-up speaker criticize DOJ.
Also, could he speak in code? Say he had a crazy dream last night where the government was out to get him?
He’s still allowed to say openly that the government is out to get him. The judge wasn’t so stupid as to ban him from saying that, because she knows that would get overturned immediately.
then, by logical extension, he can also name the judge as part of that government that is out to get him
No, because she specifically did order him not to say that.
What is interesting is that the Judge has not made any comment or gag to Smith since there has been release to Trump info into the MSM. Trump should go after the Justice Department and the Judge for the gag on him and not on Smith to the Supreme Court.
Robert Barnes, podcaster, lawyer, etc, seems to be the only one vigorously defending Trump and laying out tactics and a strategy to prevail in court,..Trump’s lawyers seem timid and weak and are intend on placating the judge/prosecution
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxCDVOmGPlo&t=1563s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRBik-D0Pco&t=2584s
How is Trump’s right to free speech impeded anything?
Fûck you Tanya Chutkin
Signed
The voters.
The Kangaroo Court is in session
Now here come the Judge
Here come the Judge
Stupidly partisan but did we expect anything else? Had the Judge applied this same order to every participant, CT employee, witness or member of the Prosecution team then maybe but she couldn’t be bothered to make even a pretense of being evenhanded.
That’s true. It’s the first amendment that does it.
As a practical matter, how can Trump possibly taint the DC jury pool more than it’s already tainted?! I suppose he can go from 97% hated to 100% hated.
97%?? Aren’t you just the eternal optimist thinking its that low! 😉
Dammit! These bastards are forcing me to vote for Trump. I was going to just stay home, not vote, and weep for the country….but they just keep pushing me….
So according to Judge Bozo, Trump’s negative opinions of a crooked system are a threat to the administration of justice, but the “fixed” nature of the prosecution (really persecution) is fine and dandy. Seems like the system deserves intense derision and disrespect.
If Trump has been gagged and can’t speak for himself, then there are 80 million Americans who can and will speak for him. We cannot and will not be silenced. Smith and Chuyken have convinced every American that all of our rights and liberties are in danger of being destroyed by the organized crime family masquerading as the Democratic Party. I speak for Trump! Will be our cry and we will speak from every corner of this land and we will not be silenced.