Government

Trump Free To Intimidate Witnesses Again After DC Circuit Stays Gag

Once he gets through chewing the furniture in New York, that is.

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Former President Trump Testifies In Trump Organization Civil Fraud Case

(Photo by Brendan McDermid-Pool/Getty Images)

Donald Trump is having a rough morning in court in New York. But in DC he caught a lucky break on Friday as the Circuit Court administratively stayed his gag order, removing one path for the former president to get himself into even more legal trouble than he’s already in.

Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed the order on October 17, barring Trump from targeting the witnesses, courtroom staff, and the prosecutors in his election interference case. During a short pause in which she allowed the parties to brief a motion to stay pending appeal, Trump managed to publicly slag a law clerk in violation of a gag order imposed by New York Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, and to attack Mark Meadows on the subject of his testimony in the DC case.

“The statement singles out a foreseeable witness for purposes of characterizing his potentially unfavorable testimony as a ‘lie’ ‘mad[e] up’ to secure immunity, and it attacks him as a ‘weakling[] and coward[]; if he provides that unfavorable testimony—an attack that could readily be interpreted as an attempt to influence or prevent the witness’s participation in this case,” Judge Chutkan wrote on October 29, refusing to stay her order pending appeal.

Three days later, Trump filed an emergency motion at the DC Circuit for stay pending appeal. He repeated the same bizarroworld arguments about the Brandenberg incitement standard and his own violent supporters functioning as a “classic heckler’s veto” that he’d tried with Judge Chutkan.

And perhaps he’ll get his way … at least for a little while.

On November 3, the DC Circuit stayed Judge Chutkan’s order administratively, setting a lightening fast briefing schedule which will allow for oral arguments on November 20.

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But as so often is the case, the devil is in the details. Trump was no doubt hoping for a lucky draw with the panel — any two of Judges Rao, Walker, Katsas, and Henderson might have done the trick. In the event, he pulled Judges Patricia Millet, Cornelia Pillard, and Brad Garcia, appointed respectively by Obama, Obama, and Biden.

It seems unlikely that any panel would invalidate a protective order in a case where one of the defendants’ supporters has already been arrested for threatening to kill the judge. Particularly since Trump’s legal reasoning would invalidate more or less every gag order and overrule Supreme Court precedent. But this was clearly not the panel he was hoping for, and he’ll almost certainly get around to shitposting about them when he finishes screaming bloody murder on the witness stand in New York.

But for the short term, Trump appears to have gotten what he wanted. For at least a couple of weeks, he can go back to screaming about “Deranged Jack Smith,” “weakling” Mark Meadows, and “loser” Bill Barr. Heck, maybe he’ll even have time to fixate on one of Judge Chutkan’s law clerks and summon a troll storm. Gotta use that time wisely, because come Thanksgiving, the fun may come to an end, at least in DC.

On the plus side. He’ll always have witnesses and prosecutors in New York, Georgia, and Florida to abuse at will.

US v. Trump [DDC Docket via Court Listener]
US v. Trump [DC Circuit]

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Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she writes about law and politics.

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