United States District Judge Tanya Chutkan reinstated a gag order on 2024 GOP front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday, lifting a temporary hold on the order.
Chutkan, who is overseeing the case into Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, imposed a gag order on the former president earlier this month, barring him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, and court staff. Trump was given a temporary hold on the gag order, however, while Chutkan listened to a motion from Trump’s lawyers to suspend it fully while they appeal.
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Trump wasted little time after the reprieve was announced, going after special counsel Jack Smith, his former chief of staff Mark Meadows, and others in angry tirades about the alleged mistreatment he has faced.
Shortly after, Smith — who is leading the election interference investigation — urged Chutkan to reimpose the gag order, arguing that there was a “need to safeguard the integrity of the proceedings, including by protecting certain trial participants from intimidation, harassment, and threats.”
That argument set up Sunday evening’s decision, where the specifics were not immediately available due to an outage of the court’s system for public viewing.
Trump acknowledged the judge’s ruling in a post on Truth Social Sunday night. “The Corrupt Biden Administration just took away my First Amendment Right To Free Speech. NOT CONSTITUTIONAL! MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN…” he wrote.
If Trump is to violate Chutkan’s order, which previously was described by his lawyers as being too vague but centers on the “targeting of individuals” to disrupt proceedings, she will have to decide what punishment to hand down.
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Trump is also under a gag order in the civil case against him in New York and has been fined thousands for comments attacking a court clerk. He has argued that such gag orders are an infringement against his First Amendment rights. However, Chutkan has denied that.
“Mr. Trump is a criminal defendant,” she said. “First Amendment freedoms do not allow him to launch a pretrial smear campaign against participating government staff, their families, and foreseeable witnesses.”
