Calling Judge Tanya Chutkan‘s “gag” order on former President Donald Trump a “modest restraining order,” former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance says that the “Judge explicitly told Trump he was free to engage in political speech, that he could criticize the Justice Department or his political opponents based on political views, but could not target prosecutors, witnesses, and court personnel.”
Because Trump has appealed the gag order in the DC Court of Appeals, Vance is making a distinction between the specifics of the order — especially where the judge went out of the way to expressly exclude Trump’s political speech from being curtailed — and how Trump’s legal team is portraying the order, which is as a “sweeping, viewpoint-based prior restraint on the core political speech of a major Presidential candidate.”
[Trump wants the gag order suspended while the appeal is considered.]
Vance asserts there’s a “large reality gap between what Trump claims the gag order does and what it in fact restricts him from doing.”
She maintains that a glance at Trump’s social media posts, while under the order, prove that the former President’s “political speech is unencumbered.” Example below:
