'He needs muzzling': Expert says Trump just showed why his gag orders are needed
Former President Donald Trump demonstrated the importance of the gag orders in some of his other civil and criminal cases during the E. Jean Carroll trial, argued attorney and legal expert Katie Phang on MSNBC's "The Beat" Friday.
Ultimately, a jury found Trump liable for $83.3 million in damages in the high-profile defamation trial, which centered on Trump claiming that Carroll fabricated a rape allegation against him to advance her writing career.
"We are supposed to have free speech in America; precisely because we have free speech, sometimes the courts determine it is expensive," said anchor Ari Melber. "In other words, in Russia, or North Korea, a government prevents you from speaking in the first place. You don't have free speech. They don't allow you to speak at all. In the U.S., that's generally called a prior restraint, and in most cases, the government cannot order a prior restraint. If we use the airwaves to defame someone, we may have to pay later. But there's no government line. That's why we do our homework, vet our guests and all the rest. Ms. Carroll was also allowed to litigate whether he had crossed the civil lines of defamation, which the courts have found he has. What can we learn about that and why it's supposed to be cautious?"
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"Your question was actually posed in the rebuttal argument by one of Carroll's attorneys," said Phang. "Shawn Crowley got up and said, if E. Jean Carroll made the allegations and they weren't true, Donald Trump had recourse. He opted to take the unlawful route."
"Sure," agreed Melber.
"Because he took that route, that's why he found himself here today," said Phang. "To your point. All of this is fantastic for us, but Donald Trump has tasted prior restraint, because he was limited gag orders already. Other courts have found that is not prior restraint. These are legitimate gag orders that need to be in place, which goes to show he has to have muzzling, because they can't control what he says."
Watch the video below or at the link.
Katie Phang says Trump needs to be "muzzled" www.youtube.com