Pressure is ratcheting up on U. S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to rein in the online commentary former President Donald Trump is making about the legal cases he faces. Trump is accused by the Special Counsel’s office of using his large social media platform to intimidate witnesses, some of whom have reportedly been threatened after he targeted them.
In a filing asking the judge to restrict Trump’s right to issue “inflammatory public statements targeted at individuals or institutions that present an obstacle or challenge to him,” the Special Counsel asserts that Trump, who “sought to erode public faith in the administration of the election & intimidate individuals who refuted his lies…is now attempting to do the same thing in this criminal case.”
Trump is now literally daring Judge Chutkan to enter a gag order. So that he can whine about it some more. pic.twitter.com/qtIml4aKev
— Joyce Alene (@JoyceWhiteVance) September 15, 2023
The former President continues, according to the filing, to issue “disparaging and inflammatory public posts on Truth Social on a near-daily basis regarding the citizens of the District of Columbia, the Court, prosecutors, and prospective witnesses.”
But if the pen is mightier than the sword and Trump’s words are dangerous weapons, as the filing contends, it is also true that — as the saying goes — “money talks.”
That’s notable because financial weapons are at least as potent as verbal weapons — and in recently unsealed documents the Special Counsel’s office revealed and questioned the propriety of the fact that Trump has paid the legal bills of associates who may be called to testify as witnesses against him at trial, a situation the Special Counsel tags as an overt conflict and an “obstructive act.”
In the just unsealed materials from the fight over Jack Smith's search warrant for Trump's Twitter account, the special counsel explicitly portrays Trump's paying of legal fees for "potential witnesses against him" in the Jan 6 case as an obstructive act. pic.twitter.com/pprLgfn5a0
— Charlie Savage (@charlie_savage) September 15, 2023
“The former president’s obstructive efforts continue unabated with respect to this investigation here, in which he has determined to pay the legal fees of potential witnesses against him,” the unsealed materials reveal.
