A federal appeals court Monday struggled with whether and how to lawfully restrict criminal defendant Donald Trump’s pre-trial speech given his history of targeting court personnel and witnesses with vitriol that prompts his followers to threaten and harass those he names.
I see no mention here of how gag orders work for everyone else. Are the gag orders more strict on Trump? What would the sanctions be for another defendant engaging in Trump’s behavior?
It seems that the defense’s argument comes down to “[Former] President Trump is a special, unique-in-all-the-world individual and nothing he does or can do can be considered wrong in any sense of the word. So, just stand back and marvel at his one-of-a-kind wonderfulness.”
Evidence abounds that Trump intimidates people through direct and indirect threats of violence. There’s Romney’s reflections about senators pulling their impeachment punches, there’s Cassidy Hutchinson’s testimony after she dumped her Trumpland lawyer, there’s the death threat against Judge Chutkan, there are the pipe bombs mailed by Cesar Sayoc, there’s Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, there are the pedophilia accusations against Rusty Bowers, … the list is quite long.
If the Judges, Clerks of the Court and so on are not running for office then what is the problem with a gag order?
If he wasn’t being treated as a special defendant with more rights than the average person his ass would be in jail. The way courts are treating him shows you that people with money, a media platform and power are treated different than the rest of us.
I haven’t noticed that these kind of issues come up at all, or for long, in other trials.
I, perhaps erroneously, assume there’s good reason for that (and it’s not that John Gotti was just a more decent, respectful human being than tfg.)
Or any mention of why gag orders may not be required for anyone else but why one is essential for Trump. The usual defendant will badmouth witnesses and court officials to his or her family and friends, who are unlikely to attack anyone (and who probably realize their friend or relative is guilty). But Trump has millions of Truth Social followers who idolize him and view his every statement as a call to action. The only defendants to whom Trump can reasonably be compared are guys like John Gotti who have a “family” of followers required to carry out his wishes.
So treat him like John Gotti. It’s what he deserves.
Gag orders are rarely impossed but they are used when there is a fear one party (usually the defendant) will try to influence the jury pool or witnesses via extra judicial actions. In the case of a jury pool exploiting the media. In the case of a witness, most often direct intimitating contact. In this case Trump will try to do both. Gag orders are most often associated with trials of mob bosses.
Why are they only concerned with having a fair judicial process and not concerned about Trump getting somebody killed?
Ordinary defendants would only be restricted from communicating with witnesses. They wouldn’t be gagged on subject matter because their bitching about witnesses isn’t likely to ever affect the jury pool. Trump got gagged on subject matter because his public spewings are disseminated so widely that they stand a good chance of intimidating witnesses and tainting the jury pool. So yes, he is being treated differently because of who he is.
It seems to me (non-lawyer) that a standard that the courts ought to adopt is this: What behavior by Trump–what words from Trump–can reasonably be inferred to present a danger that he incites some supporter “out there” in the general public to respond with an act of deadly violence against prosecutors, judges, other law-enforcement personnel, or prospective or actual jurors and witnesses?
What happened to Oliver Wendell Holmes’ hypothetical of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater?
The fact that Trump is a presidential candidate, and one seemingly on track to winning his party’s nomination and beyond that the presidential election–that he is a man with a huge megaphone and a huge public following–seems to this non-lawyer even more reason to fear that his incendiary words and actions will have dire consequences.
And therefore, for the safety of us all, he must be gagged.
Oh my goodness no. Less so. Trump’s claim that any limitation on his speech is a first-amendment violation is pure-dee bullshit. But he will keep pushing that because it’s at the heart of his strategy, which is not legal but political, and specifically insurrectionist: say I’m above the law, in the expectation that it will help me back to power, at which time I will be fully and in reality above the law.
I get the feeling that the courts dealing with Trump in general don’t understand fully that he is entirely and not in a particularly subtle or hidden way bent on their destruction.
Ooh, I know! LOCK HIM UP, and let him say whatever he wants (no internet or phone access).
Judge Luttig seems to be the only one out there declaring it loudly and often.
Lock the SOB in Guantanamo already. Why have we been keeping that facility open for so long? Lets give it a good use.
Trump learned from Roy Cohn. Attack, attack, attack. Attack anyone or any institution which could affect him. Making them look bad helps him, in his eyes. It’s worked for him so far. Why stop now? We have a long way to go here before we see if Trump’s methods finally prove to be ineffective.
It was widely discarded as any kind of valid precept and eventually superseded by the standard announced in Brandenberg v. Ohio which holds that the government cannot punish inflammatory speech unless it is both aimed at inciting imminent lawless conduct and likely to produce it.
And that’s not really at issue with trump’s gag order, because it’s just protecting the court’s ability to fairly administer justice.
Of course the Biden and Obama judges are trying to be fair; hence the perennial double standard. My guess is that Aileen Cannon wouldn’t be struggling too much in an analogous situation
Isn’t that what we have here?