WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors are urging a judge to reinstate a gag order on Donald Trump, citing current social media posts about the previous president’s chief of staff that they mentioned 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 outcomes of the 2020 election, last week temporarily paused her order barring Trump from making inflammatory comments about prosecutors, court docket staff and potential witnesses. The ruling got here as Trump’s attorneys problem the restricted gag order in larger courts.
In a movement filed Wednesday evening, particular counsel Jack Smith’s staff inspired Chutkan to put the restrictions again in place. Prosecutors cited partly statements in social media and at a information convention during the last day by Trump about his former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, who was reported by ABC Information on Tuesday to have testified earlier than a grand jury after receiving immunity from prosecution.
The previous president mused on social media about the likelihood that Meadows, a detailed ally within the White Home who was charged alongside Trump in a separate state prosecution in Georgia associated to efforts to undo the election, would give testimony to Smith in alternate for immunity. One half of the publish mentioned: “Some individuals would make that deal, however they’re weaklings and cowards, and so dangerous for the long run our Failing Nation. I do not assume that Mark Meadows is one of them however who actually is aware of?”
Of their movement, Smith’s staff cited the publish about Meadows for instance of the kind of commentary that the unique gag order was meant to prohibit and a motive why the restrictions ought to be reinstated.
Trump, prosecutors wrote, has “capitalized on the Court docket’s administrative keep to, amongst different prejudicial conduct, ship an unmistakable and threatening message to a foreseeable witness on this case.”
They added: “Until the Court docket lifts the executive keep, the defendant won’t cease his dangerous and prejudicial assaults. As well as, to the extent that the defendant’s public message — directed to the Chief of Staff, with data that it will attain him — shouldn’t be already lined by his launch situations, it’s an intentional end-run round them.”
Smith’s staff additionally requested Chutkan to modify the situations of Trump’s pretrial launch by making compliance with the gag order a situation, or by “clarifying that the present situation barring communication with witnesses about the info of the case consists of oblique messages to witnesses made publicly on social media or in speeches.”
In a separate matter Wednesday, Trump was fined $10,000 after the judge in his civil fraud trial in New York mentioned the previous president had violated a gag order.
