WASHINGTON (CN) — U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan issued a temporary stay Friday on a gag order she had imposed on Donald Trump in his election subversion case earlier in the week limiting the public statements he can make about potential witnesses, court personnel and special counsel Jack Smith.
The stay comes after Trump’s legal team filed a motion earlier on Friday requesting the order be paused pending consideration of his appeal against the order. Chutkan, a Barack Obama appointee, ruled the gag order be administratively stayed to allow full consideration of the motion.
John Lauro, Trump’s lead defense attorney in Washington, wrote in his motion that the order should remain on hold until the D.C. Circuit and potentially the Supreme Court can consider whether the order violates the ex-president and leading GOP candidate’s First Amendment rights.
The issue is the first in Trump’s Washington election subversion case to be appealed, which could impact the timing of the trial, scheduled to begin March 4, 2024. Trump has also brought forward a motion to dismiss the case altogether that will likely be rejected by Chutkan and then appealed by Trump’s team.
With the 2024 presidential election looming over the trial — and Trump’s other federal case in Florida — any delay could allow the current GOP frontrunner to skirt prosecution, because if he successfully takes back the White House, he could have his newly-appointed Attorney General stamp out the prosecution.
In the motion, Lauro argued that there is little justification for the gag order and that prosecutors have not provided any evidence of Trump himself making unlawful threats or harassment, and that the order is based on mere speculation.
He also tried to minimize the threats that come from Trump’s supporters — like a racist death threat Chutkan received two days after Trump’s arraignment on Aug. 3 — arguing that they are out of Trump’s control.
The special counsel’s office requested the order last month, citing a number of posts Trump had made in reference to his case in Washington, like an Aug. 4 Truth Social post warning his opponents “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU,” as well as his frequent derogatory statements against Chutkan, Smith, the Justice Department and D.C. in general.
Trump has regularly maligned Chutkan as biased, Smith as “deranged,” the District as “filthy and crime-ridden” and called the DOJ the “Department of Injustice.”
Chutkan’s order did not limit Trump’s comments related to the District, finding that any potentially influenced jurors could be filtered out at jury selection, or his comments against the Justice Department and President Joe Biden — who Trump near-constantly calls “crooked” — as they are not party to the case.
Her main goal, as she expressed during a hearing on Monday, was to prevent any threats against her staff, prosecutors and anyone “just doing their job,” as well as their family members, some of whom have already been targeted by Trump.
She rejected Lauro’s assertion that he could advise Trump not to make the sorts of social media posts and public comments that would violate any potential order.
Despite having been hit with both a gag order in Washington and in his Manhattan civil fraud case, Trump has continued to decry the prosecutions against him, even saying at a rally in Iowa on Tuesday that he was “willing to go to jail.”
Earlier on Friday, Trump was hit with a $5,000 fine for violating a gag order in his Manhattan civil fraud trial. Judge Arthur Engoron, who had threatened Trump with prison time Friday morning, issued the fine after discovering Trump had failed to delete a post on his website DonaldJTrump.com showing his court clerk with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer calling her his “girlfriend.”
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