Two weeks ago, a New York judge issued a gag order against Donald Trump in his state fraud trial, all about the criminal activities of Trump Org and the Trump family. Trump was in court for the first few days of the trial (which is still on-going) but he left soon after the gag order was issued. It was done, in that particular case, because Trump was posting on social media about one of the judge’s law clerks. Of course, Trump is a criminal defendant in several cases around the country, including the Washington, DC case where he’s charged for inciting the January 6th insurrection. On Monday, the judge in that DC case handed down a gag order too.

A judge imposed a limited gag order on former President Donald J. Trump on Monday, restricting Mr. Trump from making public statements attacking the witnesses and specific prosecutors or court staff members involved in the federal case concerning his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Mr. Trump’s free speech rights do not permit him “to launch a pretrial smear campaign” against those people, said the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan.

“No other defendant would be allowed to do so,” Judge Chutkan added, “and I’m not going to allow it in this case.”

But the narrowly tailored order explicitly left Mr. Trump free as he pursues his presidential campaign to continue disparaging the Justice Department and President Biden. It even allowed him to assert that he believed his criminal prosecution was politically motivated. Judge Chutkan apparently left Mr. Trump leeway to attack her as well.

The judge also addressed a particularly thorny question involving former Vice President Mike Pence, who is both a witness in the case and one of Mr. Trump’s rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination. She said Mr. Trump could go after Mr. Pence as long as the attacks did not touch on Mr. Pence’s role in the criminal prosecution.

Judge Chutkan, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, did not immediately address how she intends to enforce her order. She said she would assess any consequences for Mr. Trump if and when he violates it. Penalties for defying an order range from a reprimand or a fine to jail time.

[From The NYT]

There was a two-hour hearing in which Judge Chutkan went head-to-head with Trump’s lawyer John F. Lauro, whose arguments were so unhinged, the judge cut him off and laughed at him a few times. Her argument was that Trump has every right to run for president but he’s not allowed to bully, intimidate, harass or instigate harm to witnesses, court officials or anyone involved in the cast. Lauro apparently feels like his own “free speech” is being infringed too, since the judge told him to tone down his incendiary language. Anyway, I can’t wait for Trump to violate the gag orders and be sent to jail.

Meanwhile, Trump was in Iowa yesterday and he said military officials were some of the dumbest people he ever met in his life.

Trump in Iowa describes military officials as "some of the dumbest people I've ever met in my life" — and gets big applause for it pic.twitter.com/UmbQQAxJwQ

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 16, 2023

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.