Trump is now 'one step closer' to jail before trial: legal expert

Former President Donald Trump's odds of having his bail revoked and having to wait in jail pending trial just went up, argued New York University law professor and former Defense Department special counsel Ryan Goodman on Friday evening.

This comes after U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed a filing from special counsel Jack Smith, outlining how the former president has continued to attack and threaten witnesses as he awaits trial in the 2020 election interference case. As of now, Smith is not pursuing remand but simply a limited gag order.

"To be sure, Special Counsel Smith's proposed narrow gag order in January 6th case is premised on threat to jury pool," wrote Goodman. "But it is surely one step closer to raising the concern that Trump's intimidation of witnesses violates his conditions of release."

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In particular, Goodman focused on the sections of the filing in which Smith alleged Trump made "posts bolstering or attacking and attempting to intimidate witnesses," that these attacks are "substantially likely to materially prejudice the jury pool, create fear among potential jurors, and result in threats or harassment from individuals he singles out," and that "witnesses ... may reasonably fear that they could be the next targets of the defendant's attacks."

"Reminder of the strong warnings Judge Chutkan gave Trump to avoid intimidating witnesses as part of conditions of release," wrote Goodman. "Reminder of the even stricter conditions of Trump's release on bond in Georgia — with regard to direct or indirect intimidation/threats against witnesses (including via social media). Witnesses in the DC election interference case overlap with witnesses in Fulton County."

The Georgia case is also charging criminal conduct around the 2020 efforts by Trump and his associates to allegedly overturn the election loss, but prosecutes it as a racketeering case and charges 18 associates of the former president alongside him.