The Big Guy won’t STFU……
He DOES have the right to talk and dig himself deeper…
But he should NOT be saying things that aould cause harm and intimidation …..
Trump and the Federal case….
Special counsel Jack Smith is urging a federal judge to reinstate a gag order on Donald Trump, arguing that the former president has used a brief reprieve from the restrictions to pressure and attack witnesses like his former chief of staff Mark Meadows.
The 32-page filing on Wednesday night is a remarkable portrayal of a former president as an active danger who must be restricted by a court to not only protect the integrity of the upcoming trial but also the physical safety of government witnesses.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over Trump’s federal criminal case on charges related to his efforts to subvert the 2020 election, imposed the gag order last week, only to pause it a few days later at Trump’s request after he filed an appeal. As soon as it was paused, Trump immediately unleashed a torrent of public invective that would have violated the order if it were in effect, the special counsel’s team argued in the new brief.
“The defendant has returned to the very sort of targeting that the Order prohibits, including attempting to intimidate and influence foreseeable witnesses, and commenting on the substance of their testimony,” senior assistant special counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom wrote.
The brief describes Trump as an ongoing danger to witnesses in his forthcoming trial, scheduled to begin in March. Prosecutors say he is keenly aware of his influence on extremist followers who are often motivated by his comments to threaten or attack his perceived enemies. And they say he intentionally stokes the fury of his followers while maintaining distance from the consequences.
“He well knows that, by publicly targeting perceived adversaries with inflammatory language, he can maintain a plausible deniability while ensuring the desired results,” Gaston and Windom wrote. “The defendant knows the effect of his targeting and seeks to use it to his strategic advantage while simultaneously disclaiming any responsibility for the very acts he causes.”….
New York Trump civil fraud case…..($10,000 fine)
Donald Trump unexpectedly took the witness stand Wednesday in his civil fraud trial to face questioning from the judge about out-of-court comments in which Trump appeared to disparage the judge’s law clerk.
Finding Trump “not credible,” the judge then fined him $10,000 for defying a gag order that bars Trump from attacking court staff, marking the second time in the past week that the judge has fined Trump for violating the gag order.
“As the trier of fact, I find the witness is not credible,” Justice Arthur Engoron said after Trump testified.
The surprise testimony was perhaps the most dramatic moment thus far in the trial, in which the New York attorney general has sued Trump and his businesses for fraudulently inflating Trump’s net worth. Gasps could be heard in the courtroom as the former president walked from the defense table to the witness stand.
The episode that sparked the judge’s ire was a statement that Trump made earlier in the day to reporters in the hallway outside the courtroom. “This judge is a very partisan judge with a person who’s very partisan sitting alongside of him, perhaps even much more partisan than he is,” Trump said.
With Trump on the witness stand, the judge asked: “To whom were you referring?”
“You and Cohen,” Trump replied, referring to Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer and fixer who testified about Trump’s business practices on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Engoron, however, indicated he believed Trump was referring to his law clerk, Allison Greenfield, who sits directly to the judge’s right on the bench and whom Trump had already disparaged once before….
ACLU supports Trump vs Feds Gag order effort…..
For four years during former President Donald Trump’s presidency, the American Civil Liberties Union was one of his biggest courtroom adversaries. Now, the group is taking his side in a high-profile fight over what Trump can say as a criminal defendant.
The ACLU on Wednesday stepped into the battle over Trump’s federal gag order, arguing that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan violated Trump’s First Amendment rights as well as the public’s right to hear him when she issued the order earlier this month. Chutkan is presiding over the criminal case special counsel Jack Smith is pursuing against Trump for trying to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.
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The group urged Chutkan to reevaluate her order, calling it both vague and overbroad, with aspects of its meaning “unknown and perhaps unknowable.” One particular uncertainty the ACLU seized on was the meaning of Chutkan’s prohibition on statements that “target” Smith, his prosecutors, court personnel, defense attorneys or witnesses.
“Reading the order, Defendant cannot possibly know what he is permitted to say, and what he is not,” the group wrote.
Trump’s lawyers opposed the gag and have appealed to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Chutkan has temporarily lifted the gag order while she mulls a request to keep it on ice during that appeal.
Trump has also run into trouble in connection with a separate gag order issued by a judge in New York overseeing a civil case involving Trump’s business empire….