Three federal appeals court judges questioned Donald Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, on Monday about his attempt to overturn the partial gag order imposed on the former president in the 2020 federal election subversion case against him, before express your willingness to reduce your scope.
The panel ultimately adjourned until Nov. 30 without immediately ruling on the 77-year-old’s request, but their lines of questioning left hints that they might pursue a middle-of-the-road approach.
Sauer based his argument on Trump’s First Amendment rights while also highlighting how the order could affect his 2024 presidential campaign.
“The order is unprecedented and sets a terrible precedent for future restrictions on fundamental political speech,” the lawyer said in his opening remarks.
“Would your position be different if it were a year ago?” Circuit Judge Patricia Millett, a Barack Obama appointee, pressed Sauer at one point.
“I think the gag order would still be unconstitutional,” he responded.
Trump’s lawyer, John Sauer, argued that the gag order impeded Donald Trump’s First Amendment rights. North Dakota House Education Committee
“Okay, so the fact that we have a campaign going doesn’t matter. What matters to you, and this is still political speech, which receives very high protection, without a doubt,” Millett responded.
US District Judge Tanya Chutkan initially imposed a gag order on Trump on October 17, restricting the former president from making statements that “target” key players in his trial.
Under the “narrowly tailored” gag order, Trump is allowed to widely criticize the Justice Department and Washington, DC.
Donald Trump has accused federal prosecutors of trying to censor and silence him as he campaigns for the White House.Getty Images
But it cannot “target” special prosecutor Jack Smith or his staff, court personnel or “any reasonably foreseeable witness or the substance of their testimony.”
“It’s not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses,” Chutkan previously explained. “This is language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.”
Smith’s office had implored Chutkan to impose a gag order and cited several social media posts, including one in which the former president said, “IF YOU’RE GOING FOR ME, I’M GOING FOR YOU!”
Chutkan briefly suspended the gag order when Trump’s team filed an appeal, but then reimposed it in late October after the former president lashed out at Smith at least three times during the pause.
Judge Patricia Millett was the most outspoken member of the appeals panel during Monday’s hearing.AP
That social media post reported by Smith’s team appeared in multiple questions during Monday’s appeal hearing.
“From the day after the accusation, the accused sent on social media: ‘If you come after me, I will come after you.’ Can you say that’s protected speech? Millet asked later.
“Absolutely,” Sauer responded.
“If you post it with a photo of the district court judge,” he said.
“I would have to look at the jurisprudence,” he responded. “That would surely be more problematic.”
“I don’t hear you attach any importance to the interest of a fair trial,” he said later.
The 2020 electoral subversion case is scheduled to go to trial next March. John Lamparski/Shutterstock
When it was Special Deputy Prosecutor Cecil VanDevender’s turn to defend the gag order, the justices insisted on the scope of Chutkan’s ban.
“Do you have to talk ‘Miss Manners’ while everyone else is throwing targets at you?” Millett reflected for a moment.
“It would be really difficult in a debate, when everyone else is attacking you at full speed. Your lawyers should have written down the little things you can say.”
The judges also seemed skeptical that key public figures, such as former Attorney General Bill Barr, would alter their potential testimony in response to Trump’s broadsides.
“It seems to me that the idea that high-profile public figures or government officials who have assumed enormous responsibilities as prosecutors cannot resist inflammatory language contradicts Supreme Court precedent,” Millet said at one point.
“It is very clear that when the defendant engaged in repeated inflammatory personal attacks against someone, there is a causal link between that person receiving threats of harassment and intimidation,” VanDevender responded.
U.S. District Judge Tanya S. Chutkan said the gag order concerned “language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.” US COURTS via REUTERS
VanDevender went on to argue that “the district court correctly concluded that defendant’s well-established practice of using his public platform to attack his adversaries, including the trial participants in this case, poses a significant and immediate risk to the fairness and integrity of these procedures. .”
Chutkan has faced death threats, including from Texas woman Abigail Jo Shry, who was charged in August.
Shry left a voicemail warning that he would “kill anyone who went after former President Trump.”
Millett noted that the threat came after Trump’s notorious message.
Other messages Chutkan received included one calling her a “stupid slave,” according to court documents.
Several times throughout his questioning of VanDevender, Millett appeared to struggle with how the gag order applies to the former president’s criticism of public figures in cases that do not appear related to the election case.
Donald Trump is also immersed in another gag order battle for his civil fraud trial in New York.REUTERS
Millet was joined on the panel by another Obama appointee, Judge Nina Pillard, and Judge Bradley Garcia, an appointee of President Biden.
Trump has received support in his appeal from the left-leaning American Civil Liberties Union, the conservative group America First Legal and a handful of Republican state attorneys general who filed amicus briefs arguing for repealing the order.
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Source: vtt.edu.vn