WASHINGTON – Federal prosecutors are urging a judge to reinstate a gag order on Donald Trump, citing contemporary social media posts about the previous president’s leader of staff that they stated represented an try to affect and intimidate a foreseeable witness within the case.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who’s presiding over the federal case charging Trump with plotting to overturn the effects of the 2020 election, last week temporarily paused her order barring Trump from making inflammatory comments about prosecutors, courtroom staff and doable witnesses. The ruling got here as Trump’s legal professionals problem the restricted gag order in upper courts.
In a movement filed Wednesday night time, particular suggest Jack Smith’s staff inspired Chutkan to put the limitations again in position. Prosecutors cited partially statements in social media and at a news convention over the past day through Trump about his former leader of staff, Mark Meadows, who used to be reported through ABC News on Tuesday to have testified sooner than a grand jury after receiving immunity from prosecution.
The former president mused on social media about the chance that Meadows, a detailed best friend within the White House who used to be charged along Trump in a separate state prosecution in Georgia comparable to efforts to undo the election, would give testimony to Smith in alternate for immunity. One section of the post stated: “Some people would make that deal, but they are weaklings and cowards, and so bad for the future our Failing Nation. I don’t think that Mark Meadows is one of them but who really knows?”
In their motion, Smith’s team cited the post about Meadows as an example of the type of commentary that the original gag order was meant to prohibit and a reason why the restrictions should be reinstated.
Trump, prosecutors wrote, has “capitalized on the Court’s administrative stay to, among other prejudicial conduct, send an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness in this case.”
They added: “Unless the Court lifts the administrative stay, the defendant will not stop his harmful and prejudicial attacks. In addition, to the extent that the defendant’s public message — directed to the Chief of Staff, with knowledge that it would reach him — is not already covered by his release conditions, it is an intentional end-run around them.”
Smith’s team also asked Chutkan to modify the conditions of Trump’s pretrial release by making compliance with the gag order a condition, or by “clarifying that the existing condition barring communication with witnesses about the facts of the case includes indirect messages to witnesses made publicly on social media or in speeches.”
In a separate topic Wednesday, Trump was fined $10,000 after the judge in his civil fraud trial in New York stated the previous president had violated a gag order.