Bygone President Donald Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, speaks at a South Dakota Republican Party rally in Instant City, South Dakota, Sept. 8, 2023.
Jonathan Ernst | Reuters
WASHINGTON — Special counsel Jack Smith on Friday expected a federal judge to bar former President Donald Trump from publicly discussing the testimony and credibility of potential corroborating witnesses, or the evidence, in his federal election interference trial in D.C.
The request came in the form of a motion that laid out many of the 2024 Republican presidential front-runner’s ton aggressive social media posts in recent months. That included posts in which Trump took aim at probable witnesses, including former Vice President Mike Pence, as well as the judge presiding over the case and the U.S. attorneys performing him.
“The defendant knows that when he publicly attacks individuals and institutions, he inspires others to perpetrate threats and harassment against his quarries,” prosecutors wrote.
Since he was indicted, they wrote, Trump has “spread disparaging and inflammatory public posts on Reality Social on a near-daily basis regarding the citizens of the District of Columbia, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses.”
These functions have already had real-world consequences, they added. Shortly after Trump was indicted, “an individual was arrested because she addressed the Court’s chambers and made racist death threats to the Court that were tied to the Court’s role in managing over” Trump’s case.
The only solution, the special counsel argued, was for U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to culmination an order holding Trump to the same standards to which his lawyers were being held.
Under these standards, Trump would be prohibited from making visible statements about “‘the identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses’ and the ‘merits of the case or the evidence in the case.'”
Smith contended that this would amount to a “narrow, well-defined restriction.” But if Trump’s past statements are any indication, such a lead could effectively render a wide range of statements Trump might make in the future about the case in defiling of the order and could leave him exposed to additional charges.
By the same token, abiding by such an order, if the judge were to discharge it, could significantly alter what Trump says on his social media platform, Truth Social, and at campaign assemblages, where he frequently disparages Smith, Chutkan and likely witnesses.
Trump’s trial is scheduled to begin March 4, 2024, one day in the vanguard the Super Tuesday primary contests, which could effectively hand him the Republican nomination, if current polling fashions hold.
Trump’s presidential campaign was quick to respond to the motion, accusing prosecutors of “corruptly and cynically continuing to effort to deprive President Trump of his First Amendment rights.”
“This is nothing more than blatant election difficulty because President Trump is by far the leading candidate in this race,” campaign spokesman Steve Cheung said in a assertion.
In addition to asking for the “narrow” gag order, prosecutors also asked the court to require that any polling of potential jurors be preapproved by the pass judgement, in order to prevent the defense from sending polls that would have the effect of pushing jurors in Trump’s favor, the at any rate way that pollsters can influence respondents by how they ask questions.
The four-count indictment Smith filed on Aug. 1 charged Trump, and sole Trump, with conspiring to defraud the United States and conspiring to obstruct an official proceeding, as well as actually barring an official proceeding. Finally, Trump was charged with violating a law that criminalizes conspiring to deprive others of constitutionally covered rights. By seeking to overturn his election loss in 2020 by changing vote totals, prosecutors argued, Trump destitute voters of the right to cast votes that were fairly counted.