In recent weeks, as Donald Trump has railed publicly in response to his criminal indictments, there’s been ample speculation about whether prosecutors might try to impose some kind of gag order on the former president. As NBC News reported, late last week, a court filing helped answer the question.
Citing threats against individuals former President Donald Trump has targeted, special counsel Jack Smith has asked a federal judge for a narrowly tailored gag order that restricts the 2024 presidential candidate from making certain extrajudicial statements about the election interference case brought against him.
“The defendant has an established practice of issuing inflammatory public statements targeted at individuals or institutions that present an obstacle or challenge to him,” the special counsel’s office wrote, pointing to Trump’s “near-daily” social media outbursts.
“Like his previous public disinformation campaign regarding the 2020 presidential election,” the office added, “the defendant’s recent extrajudicial statements are intended to undermine public confidence in an institution — the judicial system — and to undermine confidence in and intimidate individuals — the court, the jury pool, witnesses and prosecutors.”
Within hours of this news reaching the public, the former president returned to his social media platform, lashed out at the special counsel, belittled President Joe Biden, and attacked federal law enforcement.
Or put another way, Trump responded to a motion for a gag order by effectively offering evidence that helped prove prosecutors’ point.
What’s less clear is whether the Republican’s lawyers would be disappointed if U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan ruled in the special counsel’s favor.
Last week, Trump sat down with conservative host Megyn Kelly and made comments about his classified documents case that likely made his legal defense team uncomfortable. In fact, after clips from the interview started circulating online, several lawyers predicted that excerpts would be played at his trial — by prosecutors, not defense counsel.
In his elections case, it was arguably worse when Trump sat down with NBC News’ Kristen Welker for a “Meet the Press” interview.
He said he didn’t listen to White House and campaign attorneys “because I didn’t respect them as lawyers.” He said those lawyers “turn out to be RINOs [Republicans in name only], or they turn out to be not so good, in many cases.”
As for the process, asked about his willingness to try to overturn his 2020 defeat, the Republican seemed quite candid about who was responsible. “You know who I listen to? Myself,” said Trump, who added: “It was my decision.” Asked for his reaction, former Solicitor General Neal Katyal told MSNBC’s Jen Psaki that one of Trump’s central defenses has been that he followed the advice of his lawyers. On “Meet the Press,” the former president effectively said the opposite. In case that weren’t quite enough, as part of the same interview, the Republican said he hoped former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows was still “loyal” to him. The New York Times noted soon after, “Mr. Trump has been warned by the federal judge in a case also stemming from his efforts to stay in office, brought against him by the special counsel Jack Smith, to avoid saying anything that might affect the testimony of witnesses. His comment about Mr. Meadows could attract new interest.” Given the circumstances, what are the odds that the former president’s lawyers might be comfortable with Chutkan agreeing to a narrow gag order?
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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