🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
Donald Trump has lashed out at the judge overseeing the federal trial into the former president's alleged criminal attempts to overturn the 2020 election results after she reinstated a gag order against him.
Judge Tanya Chutkan reimposed the narrow order that restricts what Trump can say about Special Counsel Jack Smith's team and potential witnesses in the case in which Trump has pleaded not guilty to four charges following a request from the Department of Justice.
Chutkan's reasoning for bringing back the gag order was posted online. The judge's decision was made after another judge overseeing Trump's civil fraud trial in New York fined the former president on two separate occasions for violating a partial gag imposed to stop him from attacking court staff.
In a post on Truth Social following the decision, Trump criticized Chutkan, while suggesting she should recuse herself from the case. Trump, the front runner in the 2024 GOP primary, has claimed the federal 2020 election trial, and other investigations into him, are politically motivated attempts to stop him winning the next election.
"I have just learned that the very Biased, Trump Hating Judge in D.C., who should have RECUSED herself due to her blatant and open loathing of your favorite President, ME, has reimposed a GAG ORDER which will put me at a disadvantage against my prosecutorial and political opponents," Trump wrote.
"This order, according to many legal scholars, is unthinkable! It illegally and unconstitutionally takes away my First Amendment Right of Free Speech, in the middle of my campaign for President, where I am leading against BOTH Parties in the Polls," he wrote. "Few can believe this is happening, but I will appeal. How can they tell the leading candidate that he, and only he, is seriously restricted from campaigning in a free and open manner? It will not stand!"
Chutkan had originally lifted the gag order to allow Trump's lawyers time to prove why the former president's comments should not be restricted ahead of the federal trial, which is scheduled to begin in March 2024.
Trump and his legal team have frequently argued that a gag order against a presidential candidate while they are embarking on a White House campaign is a violation of his First Amendment rights.
Trump's legal team has been contacted for comment via email.
Federal prosecutors requested that Chutkan bring back the gag order she lifted on October 20 after claiming that Trump had attempted to "influence and intimidate" potential key witness in the trial, former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows, with his social media posts.
Meadows was recently reported to have been granted immunity to testify under oath to Smith's team about Trump actions around Election Day in 2020 and the events leading up to the January 6 Capitol attack.
Reacting to the reports, Trump said he didn't think that Meadows would have testified against him, but added: "Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future [of] our Failing Nation. I don't think that Mark Meadows is one of them, but who really knows?"
In a separate case, Judge Arthur Engoron fined Trump $10,000 on October 25 after he violated a partial gag imposed to stop him from attacking court staff overseeing New York Attorney General Letitia James' lawsuit. The former president is accused of fraudulently inflating the value of his property and assets in financial statements.
The fine was issued and Engoron ruled that Trump's comments to reporters about a "very partisan" individual "sitting alongside" the judge was about Engoron's longtime law clerk Allison Greenfield.
Trump had already been fined $5,000 for violating his gag order over failing to remove a Truth Social post attacking Greenfield from his website weeks after the judge ordered it be removed.
fairness meter
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more