U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan issued a limited gag order on Monday, banning Donald Trump from making public statements that target special counsel Jack Smith, the prosecutor in the January 6 case, or “any other court personnel.”
Trump’s lawyer, John Lauro accused prosecutors of seeking to “censor a political candidate in the middle of a campaign,” but Chutkan said that Trump “does not have a right to say and do exactly as he pleases.” Lauro plans to appeal the order.
“You keep talking about censorship like the defendant has unfettered First Amendment rights. He doesn’t,” Chutkan said on Monday. “We’re not talking about censorship here. We’re talking restrictions to ensure there is a fair administration of justice on this case.”
Trump’s right to free speech, she added, doesn’t give him the right to “vilify and implicitly encourage violence against public servants who are simply doing their jobs.”
A Trump spokesman blamed “Crooked Joe Biden” for muzzling Trump.
“Today’s decision is an absolute abomination and another partisan knife stuck in the heart of our Democracy by Crooked Joe Biden, who was granted the right to muzzle his political opponent, the leading candidate for the Presidency in 2024, and the most popular political leader in America, President Donald J. Trump,” the statement said. “President Trump will continue to fight for our Constitution, the American people’s right to support him, and to keep our country free of the chains of weaponized and targeted law enforcement.”
Against claims that the protective order would give a political “advantage” to Biden, Chutkan said that she would not factor into her decision the effect a ruling has on a political campaign, “for either side.”
“What the defendant is currently doing — the fact that he’s running a political campaign has to yield to the orderly administration of justice. If that means he can’t say exactly what he wants to say about witnesses in this case, that’s how it has to be,” she said.
Chutkan’s order comes weeks after a New York City judge placed Trump under a similar gag rule, when the president made “disparaging” comments about a court clerk on his Truth Social platform.
“Personal attacks of any member of my court staff are unacceptable, inappropriate, and I will not tolerate them,” Judge Arthur Engoron said earlier this month.
A number of pro-Trump Republicans rushed to defend the former president on Monday. Senator J.D. Vance (R., Oh.) called the gag order a “direct assault on the First Amendment,” adding that the order “should be appealed as quickly as possible all the way to the Supreme Court. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) claimed that “President Trump isn’t even able to defend himself” and that the judge’s order was clearly “the weaponization of government.”