Trump has already violated federal gag order — and Jack Smith will pounce: ex-prosecutor

Former President Donald Trump is now back under the gag order imposed by federal Judge Tanya Chutkan for the 2020 election interference case — and already lashing out at her over it. But he could already be in violation, and prosecutors have the tools to go after him.

That's the view of former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, who broke down the implications on MSNBC's "The Beat" alongside former acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal.

"It's going to be attack, after attack with the idea of intimidating, which is straight out of the mob playbook," said Katyal. "It's not the same crime, but it is the same behavior and the same threat to the rule of law that a mob boss poses."

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"I think Neal's dead on the money here," said Vance. "And Trump didn't stop when the judge re-imposed the gag order, which I think is the telling point. Neal makes this fine line point here that the best evidence against Trump also comes from Trump. We've seen that, and that's something we've discussed for the last six years, starting with the firing of Jim Comey, right? It's always Trump revealing his own inner motives and talking about what he's done."

"So, here we see that last night," Vance continued. "Judge Chutkan reimposes the gag order to give Trump the opportunity to argue and respond against it. She finds his arguments aren't meritorious, and just minutes after he's reimposed, he's back on Truth Social talking to Bill Barr in similar ways to the way he talked about Mark Meadows."

"Even beyond that, like Neal, I struggled because I don't want to call it a Truth, but that's what they call it on Truth Social, so Trump has this 'Truth' that he posts while the gag order is stayed," added Vance. "He doesn't take it down when the gag order is reimposed, and technically, that means he's in violation of the gag order. It doesn't say, if you say it before the gag order and keep saying it, we'll give you grace. Here, Trump's failure to take it down is something, I think we'll see prosecutors bring to the court's attention pretty quickly."

Legal experts spent most of Sunday debating how long it would take Trump to violate the order.

Watch the video below or at the link here.

Joyce Vance says prosecutors will pounce on Trump for gag order violationswww.youtube.com