All posts tagged "Gag"

Special counsel Jack Smith has filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon to tweak the conditions of former President Donald Trump's release in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case, reported Lawfare's Anna Bower.

Specifically, he wants her to bar the former president from making statements that would endanger the lives of law enforcement officials involved in the case — which would be similar to the gag orders imposed on Trump in the federal January 6 case and the Manhattan hush money case.

The request appears to be primarily a response to Trump promoting conspiracy theories that the FBI was authorized by President Joe Biden to assassinate him, due to boilerplate language in the search warrant for classified documents at Mar-a-Lago that outlined the conditions under which they were authorized to use deadly force while executing the search....

Former President Donald Trump is asking an appeals court to invalidate the gag order imposed on him by District Judge Tanya Chutkan in the 2020 election interference case brought by special counsel Jack Smith, reported Politico's Kyle Cheney on Thursday evening.

The order narrowly prohibits Trump from attacking court officers or witnesses, but doesn't categorically prohibit him from discussing or criticizing the case against him publicly. But even this is too much for the former president.

"Given the Gag Order’s extraordinary nature, one would expect an extraordinary justification for it. Yet none exists," wrote Trump's attorneys in the filing. "President Trump has made months of public statements about this case, but the Department of Justice ('the prosecution') submitted no evidence of any actual or imminent threat to the administration of justice. Instead, when asked about the supposed threat to the case, the prosecution admitted, 'of course this prejudice is speculative.'"...

Former President Donald Trump was slapped with a $10,000 fine for violating a gag order in the New York civil fraud trial this week, after he unsuccessfully argued his disparaging comments were not directed at Judge Arthur Engoron's court clerk.

But that doesn't go far enough, argued "The View" commentator Whoopi Goldberg, reported Entertainment Weekly on Thursday. Trump should be hit with a fine more likely to actually hurt him — like $10 million.

"He was fined when he disparaged a law clerk, but it didn't stop him from spewing more nonsense when he stomped out of the courtroom," Goldberg told the audience, playing a clip in which Trump proclaimed that he "won" the trial. "What trial is he talking about? He has not won a trial."...