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Left: Former President Donald Trump speaks at the South Dakota Republican Party Monumental Leaders rally on Sept. 8, 2023, in Rapid City, S.D. AP Photo/Toby Brusseau, Right: Special counsel Jack Smith speaks about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, Aug. 1, 2023, at a Department of Justice office in Washington. AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin.
Just a day after a gag order on Donald Trump was lifted in his civil fraud trial in New York, the former president lashed out at that court clerk once again, but this time in the entirely different venue of Washington, D.C., where he is poised on Monday to fight a separate gag order sought by special counsel Jack Smith in the brewing election subversion case.
The 29-page summary argument contains a litany of now all-too-familiar criticisms Trump has lobbed at prosecutors after they charged him with engaging in a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election this August.
Through his attorneys John Lauro, Todd Blanche, John Sauer and Greg Singer, Trump balked Friday at the narrow gag order that was temporarily stayed on Nov. 3. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan originally agreed to enforce it in mid-October at the special counsel’s request but under limited terms.
She found it appropriate to limit Trump’s speech that targeted potential witnesses in the case or speech that attacked prosecutors or members of their families, as well as other officers of the court and court staff. Chutkan herself has been subject to criminal death threats since the indictment was announced against the former president in the District of Columbia this August.
In the Friday filing, Trump called the decision in New York to “silence” him over his commentary on the clerk a decision based on “hearsay media reports” of his commentary.
“In fact, this Principal Law Clerk sits beside the judge on the bench during trial, passes notes to the judge constantly, consults with the judge before virtually every ruling, and even questions counsel on behalf of the court directly — thus effectively ‘co-judging’ the trial,”” Trump’s lawyers wrote.
The former president also accuses the clerk in New York of making “illegal political donations” to entities opposing him.
In trying to explain Trump posting a 2022 photo of the clerk standing next to Senator Chuck Schumer online, his attorneys wrote that he did that because it was “a comment on how the trial against him was being run” and argued it “represents core political speech criticizing a quintessential public figure and highlighting illegal partisan activities that provide compelling evidence of judicial bias in a pending case of enormous public interest — clearly protected by the First Amendment.”
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Railing at the narrow order as unconstitutional on First Amendment grounds and blasting federal prosecutors for attempting to “silence” him, Friday’s summary is the crux of what Trump’s legal team is expected to argue at the D.C. Court of Appeals on Nov. 20.
In a preview of the treatment they will argue Trump deserves, his lawyers wrote: “The prosecution contends that silencing a political candidate with over 100 million followers imposes an ‘equal’ injury as silencing a single speaker — an argument that would flunk first-grade math.”
The former president also took umbrage with the suggestion that he is responsible for death threats that have targeted presiding Judge Chutkan.
While admitting to calling Chutkan “a fraud” and “a hack,” his attorneys argue this is free speech and speech that is within bounds.
“[The] Gag Order does not restrict criticism of the district judge, and for good reason. The operations of the courts and the judicial conduct of judges are matters of utmost public concern and the law gives [j]udges as persons, or courts as institutions … no greater immunity from criticism than other persons or institutions,” the motion states.
Further, Trump argues that his comments targeting Chutkan didn’t occur until Aug. 30 and the death threat made against her occurred Aug. 5.
“In fact, none of President Trump’s statements criticizing the district judge cited by the prosecution — and none of President Trump’s statements about this case, except a post on August 2 that accused President Biden of directing the prosecution — predates the alleged threat to the judge,” wrote Trump attorney John Sauer.
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