Judge reimposes restrictions on Trump’s speech in Jan. 6 case

A federal judge has reimposed limits on former president Donald Trump’s public statements in advance of his trial on charges of conspiring to subvert the results of the 2020 election.

U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan on Sunday evening put back in place an order she had lifted nine days earlier to give Trump and U.S. prosecutors more time to argue whether the restrictions were unconstitutional, as attorneys for the former president had claimed. Trump can now ask a higher court for an emergency stay pending appeal, but in the meantime he is bound by Chutkan’s limits. If Trump violates the gag, as he did a similar order by a state judge in New York, Chutkan will have to decide how to punish the former president and leading presidential candidate.

A notice that Chutkan had denied Trump’s request that she stay the gag order throughout his appeal was posted on the electronic docket of the federal court in Washington at about 7 p.m. Sunday, but the judge’s underlying opinion and specific order were not immediately available on the computer system.

Under the existing order Trump and all interested parties in the case are barred from making or directing others to make public statements that “target” individual attorneys, witnesses, “any reasonably foreseeable witness,” or court staff involved in the case or the substance of their testimony. While the order was on hold, Trump posted a comment on social media calling special counsel Jack Smith “deranged” and saying former chief of staff Mark Meadows would be a lying coward if he testified for the prosecution. Both comments involved some of the exact type of language Chutkan deemed out of bounds.

Trump appeared to potentially to violate Chutkan’s order 75 minutes after she gave notice that it was reinstated, attacking his former attorney general and potential witness, William P. Barr.

“I called Bill Barr Dumb, Weak, Slow Moving, Lethargic, Gutless, and Lazy, a RINO WHO COULDN’T DO THE JOB,” Trump said in part of an 88-word post on his social media platform that both belittled the man he chose to serve as the nation’s top law-enforcement officer and exaggerated his crowd sizes. “So now this Moron says about me, to get even, ‘his verbal skills are limited.’ Well, that’s one I haven’t heard before. Tell that to the biggest political crowds in the history of politics, by far. Bill Barr is a LOSER!”