Donald Trump’s lawyers have put forward a “stunning” argument for why a judge shouldn’t impose a gag order ahead of the former president’s federal trial into alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, according to a legal expert.
Lisa Rubin, an attorney and legal analyst for MSNBC, was discussing the recent 25-page filing submitted by Trump’s lawyers rejecting Special Counsel Jack Smith office’s request for a limited gag order to be imposed to stop the former president’s “near-daily” social media attacks on the case, prosecutors and potential witnesses, which could influence a jury.
Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, is yet to decide on whether a gag order, a common occurrence in criminal trials, should be imposed. She is one of those who has been targeted by Trump with his Truth Social posts, including describing her as “VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!” and demanding that she recuse herself from the case.
In a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, Rubin said that Trump’s lawyers have put forward a “doozy” of an argument that it is the Biden administration that is calling for the gag order to hinder the frontrunner in the GOP presidential primary’s 2024 election chances as it is “keenly aware that it is losing” the race.
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“Trump has filed his opposition to Jack Smith’s team’s motion for limits on what Trump and his lawyers can say about witnesses and participants in the federal election interference case. And it’s a doozy,” Rubin wrote.
“Trump—despite the Justice Department and White House’s divorcing itself from any involvement in his case—now claims ‘the Biden Administration’ charged him and now ‘seeks to unconstitutionally silence’ him because it is ‘keenly aware that it is losing that race for 2024.’
“Literally, they have accused the Biden Administration of filing the motion to distract from Trump’s ‘commanding lead in the polls’ and part of a larger election interference scheme,” Rubin added. “It’s one thing for Trump himself to say this; it’s stunning to see it from his lawyers.”
Trump’s legal team has been contacted for comment via email.
Trump has long denied all wrongdoing in relation to the attempts to overturn the 2020 election and the January 6 attack, and he has pleaded not guilty to four federal charges under Smith’s probe. The former president has also called the investigation, and the other criminal cases he has been charged under, “election interference” aimed at stopping him re-entering the White House.
Trump and his lawyers have also claimed that any attempt to impose a gag order would violate his First Amendment right to free speech while he is trying to campaign for president.
“Following these efforts to poison President Trump’s defense, the prosecution now asks the Court to take the extraordinary step of stripping President Trump of his First Amendment freedoms during the most important months of his campaign against President Biden,” Trump’s legal team wrote in their latest filing. “The Court should reject this transparent gamesmanship and deny the motion entirely.
“The proposed gag order is nothing more than an obvious attempt by the Biden Administration to unlawfully silence its most prominent political opponent, who has now taken a commanding lead in the polls,” the filings add.
Federal prosecutors previously said Trump’s “disparaging and inflammatory” posts on Truth Social could potentially taint a jury pool and undermine the case itself.
“Like his previous public disinformation campaign regarding the 2020 presidential election, 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,” prosecutors wrote in the September 15 filings.
Trump is due to stand trial on charges of conspiracy to defraud the United States, witness tampering, conspiracy against the rights of citizens, and obstruction of and attempt to obstruct an official proceeding in March 2024.