Trump Takes A Break From Witness Intimidation In DC To Violate Gag Order In New York

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(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Last week, Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed a limited gag order in Donald Trump’s election interference case. Noting that “when Defendant has publicly attacked individuals, including on matters related to this case, those individuals are consequently threatened and harassed,” the court barred him from commenting on Special Counsel Jack Smith and his staff, any member of the court’s staff, and “any reasonably foreseeable witness or the substance of their testimony.”

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Naturally Trump screamed bloody murder.

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“The judge said basically, I don’t have a right to speak,” he whined during a campaign stop in Iowa, adding that Judge Chutkan’s “whole life is not liking me.”

“A TERRIBLE THING HAPPENED TO DEMOCRACY TODAY – GAG ORDER!” he yelled on Truth Social as he vowed to appeal the ruling. And indeed, his lawyers John Lauro and Todd Blanche did notice an immediate appeal to the DC Circuit and then requested that the trial court stay the order pending appellate review.

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On Friday, Judge Chutkan took time out of her busy schedule of “not liking” Trump to immediately grant an administrative stay, ordering the government to file its opposition today, with a reply from Trump due on Saturday.

Trump, who never stopped screaming about his other pending criminal cases, added “deranged” Jack Smith back to the rotation, although he’s largely been focused on New York Attorney General Letitia James and Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron this week as his civil fraud trial in Manhattan plods along. And there was some action on the New York gag order, too, when it emerged that Trump had removed a social media post falsely accusing Justice Engoron’s clerk of being Sen. Chuck Schumer’s “girlfriend” from his Truth Social feed, but not from the mirror site which records his every burp for posterity.

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After threatening to throw Trump in jail for violating the prior order, Justice Engoron fined him $5,000, and Trump went back to shitposting about Michael Cohen, even as Cohen was on the witness stand testifying against him.

But last night ABC reported that Mark Meadows had been granted immunity to testify before the grand jury investigating the election interference case — a story which was widely (if perhaps inaccurately) understood to mean that the former White House chief of staff had “flipped.”

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Trump immediately threw himself into demonstrating to Judge Chutkan exactly why he needs to be gagged. And also that he is out of his freakin’ gourd.

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If we might translate:

Mark Meadows would never “lie” just to save his own skin. Unless that thug Jack Smith told Meadows he’d be poor like a dog. [What is it with dogs?] In which case, Meadows would say “STUFF” about “MONSTER” so he could keep his money and get a statue in DC for the antifa gangs to visit and leave flowers at between carjackings. Trump doesn’t think Mark Meadows is a weakling and a coward, but maybe he is, who knows? Anyway, don’t be a dog, Mark!

Trump followed that up by exhorting Meadows to stick with the lies he’d told about Trump in his book: “Mark Meadows NEVER told me that allegations of significant fraud (about the RIGGED Election!) were baseless. He certainly didn’t say that in his book!”

And just to footstomp the fact that he needs to be on a tight a leash — like a dog! — Trump told reporters outside the courtroom in New York that he would win with a jury, but lose before Justice Engoron because “this judge is a very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside… perhaps even much more partisan than he is.”

This was clearly another reference to the law clerk, although Trump’s lawyer Chris Kise attempted to convince Justice Engoron that his client was just engaged in a little light witness intimidation.

The judge said: "I am very protective of my staff, as i should be…I don’t want anybody killed." After Kise claimed Trump was referring to Cohen, Judge Engoron said he would take the matter under advisement.

— erica orden (@eorden) October 25, 2023

Nothing like violating the existing gag order and intimidating two witnesses to convince a judge that you don’t need another gag order. Perhaps the rumblings from the New York judge will keep Trump quiet for long enough that prosecutors in DC will be able to finish cataloging them for the opposition to the stay of the gag order.

But if you were a betting man … you’d take the under.

US v. Trump [DDC Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.

Topics

Arthur Engoron, Courts, Donald Trump, Gag Orders, Tanya Chutkan