The partial gag order placed on the former president earlier this week has been temporarily lifted by the judge presiding over the federal election meddling case against Donald Trump.
As they prepare to file an appeal, Trump’s attorneys requested U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to suspend the order she had given on Monday. She did so on Friday.
The judge ordered the office of special counsel Jack Smith until Wednesday to respond to Trump’s demand. After that, defense lawyers will have three days to reply to the prosecution’s filing. The restrictions outlined in Monday’s gag order won’t apply during that period.
Friday evening, the special counsel’s office declined to comment.
Following a hearing on Monday, Chutkan issued the gag order after Smith’s legal team argued that a specific order was required to “protect the integrity of the trial and the jury pool.”
In a written ruling issued on Tuesday, she formalized the order and stated that it was beyond doubt that “testimony cited by the government shows that when Defendant has publicly assaulted individuals, including on matters associated with this case, those people are consequently threatened and harassed.”
In a document submitted to the judge on Friday, Trump’s attorneys claimed that her ruling “imposes an overbroad, based on content prior restraint on the lead Presidential candidate’s core political speech.”
Trump, who has pleaded not guilty to the charges brought against him in the case, was claimed to have “irreparable injury” of his First Amendment rights if the injunction was put in place while they were filing an appeal.
Trump’s claims that “his prosecution is politically motivated; statements criticizing the campaign platforms or policies of Defendant’s current political rivals, such as former Vice President Pence,” or his assertions that “the government generally, such as the current administration or the Department of Justice,” are not prohibited, according to Chutkan’s ruling.
The gag order was excessively onerous, according to Trump’s attorneys, who claimed as much in their Friday brief.
“The witnesses that third parties observing President Trump have supposedly intimidated—former Vice President Pence, former Attorney General Barr, as well as former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley—are very high-level public figures that have voluntarily entered the public arena as well as invited the cut and thrust of public debate by openly criticizing President Trump,” his legal team argued.
Trump has been subject to gag orders previously.
After Trump implied in an online post that the judge’s law clerk had a connection to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., the judge in New York who is presiding over the civil fraud trial contrary to Trump and his company issued a narrower gag order barring the former president from speaking out or posting on social media about court personnel.
Although Trump removed the message, the judge discovered Thursday night that it remained on Trump’s campaign website. Trump was given a $5,000 punishment by the judge, and he was warned that he would go to jail for any additional offenses, “whether intentional or unintentional.”
Trump’s legal team claimed the social media post regarding the law clerk was accidentally left on the campaign website. Trump has denied any wrongdoing in the fraud case. A Schumer representative earlier referred to Trump’s post as “ridiculous, absurd, and false,” adding that the senator is unacquainted with the clerk.