Jack Smith

Trump's own "narcissism" could be his downfall, a former White House lawyer who served during the ex-president's administration warns.

Former President Donald Trump and his lawyers have been slamming Judge Tanya Chutkan's limited gag order in special counsel Jack Smith's election interference case as an attack on his First Amendment rights. A three-judge panel evaluated the gag order, which is on hold, during a Monday session.

The reason that Donald Trump's lawyer was refusing to answer the questions being asked of him in court on Monday was likely because he knew there was no way he was going to win, three legal experts told MSNBC on Monday evening.

Before the Washington, D.C. Court of Appeals, Trump's lawyer, John Sauer, repeatedly refused to answer the hypothetical questions being posed to him. Ultimately, this led Judge Cornelia Pillard to snap at him.

There is little chance of Donald Trump winning his appeal of the gag order in the 2020 election case, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner contends. But the gag order could be more narrowly designed.

The heated debate over the Republican candidate's right to free speech versus his ability to endanger courtroom officials via social media screeds stretched well beyond the anticipated 40 minutes Kirschner estimated it would take, he told MSNBC's Alicia Menendez on Monday.

Donald Trump's attorneys are turning to an unlikely source for help in obtaining federal records to defend himself in the Fulton County election subversion case.

The former president's legal team has asked Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis to contact special counsel Jack Smith to see if he would share discovery letters and lists of evidence that she could then disclose to his attorneys in the Georgia case, reported the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

A three-judge federal appeals court reviewing Donald Trump's request to overturn U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan's limited gag order listened for nearly two and a half hours to arguments that were slated to last a total of 40 minutes. They appeared largely skeptical of Trump's attorney's arguments, but experts say they believe the court will uphold the gag order while narrowing it somewhat to protect the ex-president's First Amendment rights.

“We have to use a careful scalpel here and not step into skewing the political arena,” U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Judge Judge Patricia Millet said in the latter half of Monday's hearing. MSNBC legal analyst Katie Phang called that "the crux" of the case. She added: "Judges are saying that there is a balance here to protect the integrity of the criminal judicial system, but not to infringe on someone’s rights."

Donald Trump's crowd envy and superpower flexing are digging him into a deep legal hole, his niece warned.

Mary Trump has been unsparing with her jabs at her notorious uncle and, in a recent edition of her Substack podcast "The Good In Us," she talks about his bravado backfiring.

Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is proposing a trial start date of August 5, 2024 for former President Donald Trump's election racketeering case, according to a new filing Friday.

This comes amid uncertainty about the start date of a number of other trials against the former president, including the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case and the federal election interference case, both brought by special counsel Jack Smith.

A federal judge has denied Donald Trump's request to remove language about the Jan. 6 insurrection from his indictment in the election subversion case.

District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan found that Trump's lawyers offered no evidence that language about the U.S. Capitol riot in the federal indictment had polluted the jury pool, and she slapped down “inflammatory and unsupported” allegations against special counsel Jack Smith's office, reported Politico's Kyle Cheney.