'Mob behavior': Yale historian appalled that request for Trump jury protection needed

Yale historian Joanne Freeman found herself utterly appalled on Tuesday when she saw that special counsel Jack Smith felt the need to request special protections for the people who will serve as jurors at former President Donald Trump's Washington D.C. trial next year.

In his filing, Smith pointed to Trump's very long history of trying to intimidate potential witnesses on social media and requested that the court "implement several of the standard measures frequently used in this District to protect the jury, and impose additional clear guidelines for use of information regarding potential jurors."

Reacting to this on Twitter, Freeman said that no one should lose sight of just how unprecedented this kind of request is regarding a former president of the United States.

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"Please don't scroll past the fact that we need special protection for jurors in the Trump case," she wrote. "Pause with that a moment. This is mob behavior. It stabs at the heart of the rule of law. If you support this kind of thing, wait until you're on its wrong side and it comes for you."

Trump just last week got hit with a gag order after the former president spread an evidence-free claim that a New York law clerk in Judge Arthur Engoron's court was Sen. Chuck Schumer's (D-NY) "girlfriend."