Jack Smith's 'halfhearted' concern for Trump's First Amendment rights 'laughable': columnist

A former Wall Street Journal columnist finds special counsel Jack Smith's proposal to issue a "narrow" gag order for Donald Trump "laughable."

In a Washington Post column, conservativeJason Willick calls Smith's "halfhearted" concern for the former president's First Amendment rights as he requests the court control of Trump's outbursts as "laughable," saying the special prosecutor wants to shut down Trump's "ability to criticize the criminal case against him for trying to overturn his 2020 election loss."

Smith's recently unsealed filing specifically targets Trump's attacks on "individuals."

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“The defendant has an established practice of issuing inflammatory public statements targeted at individuals or institutions that present an obstacle or challenge to him,” according to the special counsel's office.

For example, Trump's Aug. 4 post read: "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!"

"I’m tempted to condemn Smith’s request for a gag order as an intrusion on the 2024 election, but that would miss the point," Willick continues.

The column echoes the Trump campaign's statement calling the filing "nothing more than blatant election interference because President Trump is by far the leading candidate in this race."

"The Justice Department has already decided to thrust itself into the middle of the election," Willick went on. "It might as well follow through: Prohibit Trump from attacking the proceedings, and when he doesn’t comply, jail him for contempt mid-campaign. Isn’t that what Attorney General Merrick Garland means when he says 'no person is above the law'? Prosecutors have made their bed; they should lie in it."

Trump consistently attacks the case along with "election cheating" and other topics. But what Smith described as objectionable is when Trump names prosecutors, Judge Tanya Chutkan and even witnesses who might appear.

U.S. Marshals have been spotted around Chutkan, though the Marshals Service refused to respond to TIME's questions about their presence.

"New York Attorney General Letitia James, who is pressing a civil suit against Trump, has also reported receiving death threats. 'I have more law enforcement around me these days,'" she said on a podcast in June according to TIME. "Individuals have threatened my life.''

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And Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has also become a Trump target, the report continued, after he filed felony charges against Trump concerning hush-money payments allegedly made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. "In March, Bragg was threatened with assassination in a letter containing a white powder that was later found to be non-hazardous," NBC News reported.

It's a topic that MSNBC's Rachel Maddow focused on in her show Monday.

"It's Fulton County officials being threatened," she began. "It's the Fulton County sheriff having to investigate that. Then it's the Fulton County sheriff being threatened and the FBI having to investigate that. Then it's the FBI being threatened. FBI officials and FBI agents themselves are being threatened and the FBI had to investigate that. It's the judge in one of the Trump cases being threatened. It's another judge and another one of the Trump cases being threatened. It's the grand jurors in one of the Trump cases being threatened. It's the prosecutor in one Trump case being threatened. It's the prosecutor in another Trump case being threatened. It's a federal prosecutor in the Hunter Biden investigation getting, 'Such a barrage of credible threats that she had to seek security help from the U.S. Marshals Service.' It's public health workers being threatened and harassed. It's the head of the CDC getting death threats. The head of the CDC!"

Trump's words don't happen in a vacuum, she argued. The First Amendment guarantees someone can say what they want, but if they make a bomb threat, they're still arrested whether there is a bomb or not. In most states, death threats are illegal.

"The threat must be capable of placing someone in fear of harm and lead them to conclude that the threat is credible, real, and imminent. If you threaten to blow up the world if you don't get the last chocolate babka, no reasonable person hearing it would believe the threat was real. On the other hand, if you walk into a store with a gun and threaten to shoot everyone, such a threat is credible and specific," attorney Rebecca Pirius explained on Criminal Defense Lawyer.

What's more, it appears Trump's own lawyers might have explained the problem to him, experts said. Former federal prosecutor Harry Litman said on Monday, "Yes, Trump continues to employ the same braggadocio. But listen carefully, he's begun to pepper his proclamations with hedges."

He cited phrases like "in my opinion" and "that's what I think" during his "Meet the Press" interview.

The phrases are "lawyer-prescribed to try to shield him from outright lies," concluded the former prosecutor.