Government

Trump Baits Court With Social Media Rants About Jan 6 Case

Protective orders violate FREE SPEECH? Like ... all of them?

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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

If Trump’s Truth Social feed is any barometer, the pressure from three pending criminal indictments is starting to get to him.

It started Thursday after his arraignment in DC for seeking to overturn his election loss when the former president made an apparent threat to “go after” prosecutors.

IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I’M COMING AFTER YOU!

His comms team hastily put out a statement pinky swearing that “The Truth post cited is the definition of political speech, and was in response to the RINO, China-loving, dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs, like the ones funded by the Koch brothers and the Club for No Growth.” 

But then his lawyers failed to wring a week’s delay out of a dispute over a protective order, and Trump spent Saturday and Sunday vomiting out a stream of invective which couldn’t be explained away as Republican-on-Republican violence.

He shit talked DC and then cited his own screeching as reason for a change of venue:

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NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL, OR EVEN CLOSE TO A FAIR TRIAL, IN WASHINGTON, D.C. THERE ARE MANY REASONS FOR THIS, BUT JUST ONE IS THAT I AM CALLING FOR A FEDERAL TAKEOVER OF THIS FILTHY AND CRIME RIDDEN EMBARRASSMENT TO OUR NATION, WHERE MURDERS HAVE JUST SHATTERED THE ALL TIME RECORD, OTHER VIOLENT CRIMES HAVE NEVER NEEN WORSE, AND TOURISTS HAVE FLED. THE FEDERAL TAKEOVER IS VERY UNPOPULAR WITH POTENTIAL AREA JURORS, BUT NECESSARY FOR SAFETY, GREATNESS, & FOR ALL THE WORLD TO SEE!

He tapped out multiple posts howling about “Deranged Jack Smith” and his ‘Thug Prosecutors.”

DERANGED JACK SMITH AND OUR HIGHLY PARTISAN, AND VERY CORRUPT, DEPARTMENT OF INJUSTICE, COULD HAVE BROUGHT THIS BIDIN “OPPONENT” CASE YEARS AGO, BUT CHOSE TO WAIT AND BRING IT RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF MY ELECTION CAMPAIGN. NO WAY!!! I HOPE YOU ARE WATCHING AMERICA. OUR COUNTRY IS BEING DESTROYED. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

And of course, he slagged Judge Tanya Chutkan:

THERE IS NO WAY I CAN GET A FAIR TRIAL WITH THE JUDGE “ASSIGNED” TO THE RIDICULOUS FREEDOM OF SPEECH/FAIR ELECTIONS CASE. EVERYBODY KNOWS THIS, AND SO DOES SHE! WE WILL BE IMMEDIATELY ASKING FOR RECUSAL OF THIS JUDGE ON VERY POWERFUL GROUNDS, AND LIKEWISE FOR VENUE CHANGE, OUT IF D.C.

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Prosecutors proposed the same protective order imposed in Steve Bannon’s contempt of Congress case, but Trump’s lawyers balked, demanding a hearing on the matter before wandering off to do a dozen media hits claiming that Trump’s coup attempt was merely “aspirational.” On Fox, Trump lawyer John Lauro accused the government of trying to hide ‘non-sensitive political information about what the case involves, in a political season” with the protective order. The government’s motion seeks to protect grand jury testimony and sealed search warrant affidavits, but that didn’t stop Trump launching himself on a whole new rant about the unfairness of a protective order at all:

No, I shouldn’t have a protective order placed on me because it would impinge upon my right to FREE SPEECH. Deranged Jack Smith and the Department of Injustice should, however, because they are illegally “leaking” all over the place!

Judge Chutkan has imposed a 5pm deadline for Trump to respond to the proposed protective order. We’ll see if his lawyers advocate for their client’s “FREE SPEECH” right to disseminate grand jury testimony online. Perhaps they’ll let us in on the “VERY POWERFUL GROUNDS” for Judge Chutkan’s recusal and removal of this case to West Virginia for “diversity.”

Or perhaps not.

US v. Trump [Docket via Court Listener]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics and appears on the Opening Arguments podcast.

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