{"id":19682,"date":"2023-10-31T03:00:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T08:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=19682"},"modified":"2023-10-31T03:00:41","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T08:00:41","slug":"judge-reinstates-gag-order-in-donald-trumps-federal-election-interference-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=19682","title":{"rendered":"Judge reinstates gag order in Donald Trump\u2019s federal election interference case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Donald Trump was once again bound by&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2023\/oct\/16\/donald-trump-trial-court-gag-order-2020-election\">the gag order in the federal criminal case<\/a>&nbsp;charging him with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, after a judge on Sunday reinstated restrictions prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The US district judge Tanya Chutkan also denied&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/donaldtrump\">the former US president\u2019s<\/a>&nbsp;request to suspend the gag order indefinitely while his lawyers appealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Trump had been granted a reprieve when the judge temporarily lifted the gag order while she considered that request. Prosecutors argued last week that the order should be reimposed after Trump took advantage and posted a slew of inflammatory statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The statements included Trump\u2019s repeated attacks on the special counsel Jack Smith, whom he called \u201cderanged\u201d, and Trump\u2019s comments about the testimony that his former White House chief of staff&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/mark-meadows\">Mark Meadows<\/a>&nbsp;had provided to the grand jury during the criminal investigation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Prosecutors argued that each of Trump\u2019s statements were exactly the sort of comments that the order was designed to prevent, including intimidating or influencing witnesses who could wind up testifying against him at trial, and weighing on the substance of their testimony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe defendant has capitalized on the court\u2019s administrative stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case,\u201d prosecutors said in their brief. \u201cUnless the court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not stop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">In particular, prosecutors complained about Trump\u2019s post on Meadows that questioned the credibility of his testimony and suggested that anyone who testified against him under limited immunity from prosecution \u2013 such as Meadows \u2013 were weak or cowardly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Prosecutors also suggested that after Trump was fined $10,000 for flouting a similar gag order imposed in the civil fraud case brought by the New York state attorney general, Letitia James, Trump should also face consequences for assailing parties in the criminal case in Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The back and forth over the gag order, which was initially put in place less than two weeks ago at a contentious hearing in federal district court in Washington after prosecutors&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2023\/sep\/29\/donald-trump-2020-election-prosecution-gag-order\">first sought restrictions in a series of sealed court filings in September<\/a>, has been a hard-fought legal battle for both sides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">Trump has angrily pushed back at attempts to constrain his public remarks about the case, calling them politically motivated. He has had his lawyers previously complain to the judge that prosecutors were infringing on his first amendment rights, especially as he campaigns for another presidential term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\">The arguments from Trump lawyer\u2019s John Lauro have partly focused on people such as the former vice-president Mike Pence, saying a gag order prevented Trump from engaging about January 6 on the debate stage. But that fell by the wayside when Pence dropped out of the 2024 race on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2023\/oct\/30\/donald-trump-election-interference-case-gag-order\">Theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Donald Trump was once again bound by&nbsp;the gag order in the federal criminal case&nbsp;charging him with conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results, after a judge on Sunday reinstated restrictions prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, court staff and potential trial witnesses. The US district judge Tanya Chutkan also denied&nbsp;the former US president\u2019s&nbsp;request to suspend the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":19683,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[10444,23777,23776,7582,2891,9050,23778,1230],"class_list":["post-19682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-america-2","tag-dry-plan","tag-federal-election","tag-judges","tag-politics","tag-restraining-order","tag-resumption","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19682"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19682\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19684,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19682\/revisions\/19684"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/19683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}