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Special prosecutor Jack Smith’s team made a late night filing on Friday, asking the judge in the case to issue a “protective order” so that Donald Trump cannot reveal evidence given to his team by the DOJ.
There was confusion in the media over who wrote the filing. The Hill states that it was Jack Smith himself, but Politico states that it was two of the lawyers on his team, Senior Assistant Special Counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom. Looking at the document, it is submitted under Jack Smith’s name, but cites that Gaston and Windom wrote the filing.
What is not in dispute is what Donald Trump posted on Truth Social. The question is, what does this actually MEAN.
👀 Prosecutors just proposed a protective order referencing Trump’s Truth Social post from earlier tonight, saying it clearly references other parties/participants in the case pic.twitter.com/COz6jB2P06
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) August 5, 2023
This is Donald Trump we are talking about, and the entirety of the DOJ charges hinge on getting into Trump’s head to discern intent (which is why these charges over January 6th are such a load of crap). If anyone claims that they know, moment to moment, what is going on inside Trump’s head, they are lying. And yet the DOJ is hanging their entire case on Trump “knowingly” lying that he won the 2020 election. Now, this is a Washington DC jury with an obviously biased judge, so while these charges are obviously politically motivated and specious, a jury in DC could very well convict Donald Trump.
Trump’s post is very open-ended and explicitly targets no one. But that’s not how the special counsel’s office wants to read it, so that’s why Gaston and Windom wrote their late night motion for a protective order.
In a court filing just before 10 p.m. Friday, Senior Assistant Special Counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom alerted the judge in Trump’s latest criminal case – U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan – to a combative post Trump sent earlier in the day.”
“If you go after me, I’m coming after you!” Trump wrote in all caps Friday afternoon on Truth Social, which is run by a media company he co-owns.”
The prosecutors said Trump’s post raised concerns that he might improperly share evidence in the case on his social media account and they urged that he be ordered to keep any evidence prosecutors turn over to his defense team from public view.”
“All the proposed order seeks to prevent is the improper dissemination or use of discovery materials, including to the public,” Gaston and Windom wrote. “Such a restriction is particularly important in this case because the defendant has previously issued public statements on social media regarding witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him. … And in recent days, regarding this case, the defendant has issued multiple posts—either specifically or by implication—including the following, which the defendant posted just hours ago.”
Now, this is not a “gag order.” What the special counsel’s office wants is to keep Trump from revealing on social media or in speeches about anything he learns from his lawyers about the evidence that will be handed over during discovery.
Smith’s office has not sought a gag order in either of the criminal cases it is pursuing against Trump: one in Florida focused on his retention of classified documents and the other in Washington over his efforts to interfere with the certification of the 2020 presidential election. The filing Friday night does not make any request to bar Trump or his attorneys from discussing the D.C. case publicly or with the media.”
However, prosecutors in that case have indicated they’re prepared to share a “substantial“ volume of evidence with Trump as soon as Chutkan approves an order governing the handling of evidence. Chutkan is slated to bring attorneys for both sides to court on Aug. 28 to discuss setting a trial date. It’s unclear if Trump’s post will prompt her to seek more immediate efforts to implement a protective order or to impose a gag order, which can be issued under D.C. federal court rules.”
Naturally, the media is thrilled with the idea of muzzling Trump in any way.
We already know that Chutkan is no fan of Donald Trump, and so she may issue some kind of protective order. How that is crafted is likely to be an issue hashed out with the legal teams.
Obviously, Donald Trump should have the right to talk about his case. He is facing possible jail time, after all, and finds this entire situation offensive in every way, because it is. The problem is that – and I’m being generous here – Trump is absolutely undisciplined when it comes to his use of social media. Some people find that appealing. The problem becomes when Trump supporters take what the former president says, and then go off the rails. That’s how we got into this entire situation on January 6th. And Trump himself, after he was warned that the indictment was coming, called his supporters “passionate” as he said it would be “dangerous” to send him to jail.
In an interview with The Simon Conway Show on Tuesday after the news of the target letter broke, the former president was asked by host Doug Wagner (filling in for Conway) what his message to supporters would be should Mr Smith imprison Mr Trump ahead of any trial.”
Said Wagner: “Is it something that concerns you of the people making sure that they don’t go out of their right mind if something like that happens, if that, for example, they do say — Jack Smith says, OK, I’m going to put Donald Trump in jail?”
The former president replied: “I think it’s a very dangerous thing to even talk about because we do have a tremendously passionate group of voters, much more passion than they had in 2020 and much more passion than they had in 2016.”
He reiterated: “I think it would be very dangerous.”
This is where things could become dicey. Trump has acknowledged that he has “passionate” supporters, and then he puts out an open-ended comment in all caps stating “IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!” He is treading right on the “will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” line, and Donald Trump has to know at this point that there are people out there who will take anything he says literally.
Now, should Trump be held legally liable if people do stupid or illegal things because they think he wants them to? Nope, because that’s not incitement, and that is where a lot of the indictment falls down on its face, according to people with law degrees. But it would also behoove Trump to think about what he does post on social media, because this is what can happen when he doesn’t. A couple of DOJ assistant special counsel lawyers get their laptops fired up on a Friday and make a filing asking for a protective order before heading into the weekend, all because they feel like Trump is targeting THEM.
The real question is, if their charges are justified under the law, and their evidence is so airtight and solid, then why would they be so concerned if Trump talked about it? Hmmmm?
Featured image via succo on Pixabay, cropped, Pixabay license
Cameron says: Ten bucks says that by December, Congress will try passing a law making Donald Trump illegal.
Scotty L Uhrich says: Quite clearly Trump’s comment was directed against the DOJ and not any individual. It came out at the same time that the AP stated that they were concerned about Trump’s plans to clean up the DOJ. But naturally, the chicken little critics of Trump, who are constantly crying that the sky is falling because of Trump, ignored that. Most notable of these is Karen Townsend of Hot Air, who apparently has picked up the “Trump is the source of all evil” beat that Allahpundit used to cover.
A reader says: The indictment is not about free speech. Did you even bother to read it? It specifically says: “The Defendant had a right, like every American, to speak publicly about the election and even to claim, falsely, that there had been outcome-determinative fraud during the election and that he had won.” What the indictment is about are his actions: specifically the alternate electors scheme and trying to get Pence to delay the vote, etc.. Those actions were unconstitutional. The “Klan Act” charge specifically gets to the heart of the matter because it refers the attempts to overturn votes in majority black districts. It was an attempt to disenfranchise those voters and make their voices not count. And that is just plain wrong.
The fact that the ladies here are defending him is not surprising but is no less disgusting. I guess the idea of a wanna be autocrat using the Insurrection Act to put down protests after he attempted to overthrow an election sounds just fine and dandy to you. Think about what that means. Trump challenged the results in court and lost all but once, and the win wasn’t even a real win. They had ZERO evidence that he won and could not prove that the results of the election were suspect no matter what they said. If you can’t prove it legally in court, then you have nothing as far as recourse. What’s that phrase Ben Shapiro is so fond of? “Facts don’t care about your feelings.” That definitely applies here. One can “feel” that Trump won and the election was stolen and whatnot, but it doesn’t make it true. And by taking those feelings and acting on them with schemes to overturn the election, that’s how Trump got indicted. The First Amendment only protects against his speech, it doesn’t protect against illegal actions. Maybe next time listen to real lawyers instead of one who barely practiced law, doesn’t know what he’s talking about, and is a partisan flunkie trying to keep the gravy train rolling his way.
A reader says: Also, this is a much better analysis of the indictment and it points out, factually, how people like Shapiro and The National Review are lying to you.
A reader says: Or if you won’t listen to Ken White, then maybe you’ll listen to the National Review’s Noah Rothman, who wrote this dissent of the editorial cited in the blog post:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/08/january-6-was-a-crime/
The difference with him— and Ken White—is they cite actual case law. What a novel idea…
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