Can you legally prevent Trump from making ‘mean tweets’ about you. Sure, all you have to do is have a black robe courtesy of the ruling party.
A federal judge on Monday issued a gag order on former President Donald Trump, limiting what he can say about special counsel Jack Smith’s federal prosecution into his alleged attempt to subvert in the 2020 presidential election.
“This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses,” Judge Tanya Chutkan said. “This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.”
“His presidential candidacy does not give him carte blanche to vilify public servants who are simply doing their jobs,” the judge added.
Vilifying “public servants” is probably the most fundamental civil right. It’s what distinguishes us from a monarchy or some sort of totalitarian system.
Judge Chutkan would like to be a monarch and has barred Trump from calling her names.
Citizens should be encouraged to vilify public servants.
In social media posts, Trump has attacked Chutkan as a “biased, Trump Hating Judge” and called Smith “deranged” and a “thug” as well as attacked individual members of his team.
“When you start to use a word like ‘thug’ to describe a prosecutor doing their job, that wouldn’t be allowed by any other criminal defendant,” Chutkan said. “Just because the defendant is running a political campaign does not allow him to do whatever he wants.”
She added: “If the message Mr. Trump wants to express is ‘my prosecution is politically motivated,’” he can do so without using “highly charged language.”
What exactly is the harm in calling Jack Smith a “thug”, is there more harm in it than in the things that the media has said about Trump. Or that Chutkan has said about Trump?
There are some limitations on what criminal defendants can say in criminal cases, however the Trump cases are blatantly political cases timed for the election process. And the prosecutors in those cases have felt free to plant stories in the media on a regular basis. Trump cannot properly pursue his political candidacy if he is not able to speak about the biggest political issue facing him: the trials.
Liberal lawyers worship Clarence Darrow whose attacks were absolutely vicious and cruel. And utterly unfair. He claimed that the state shrink “would lick his chops” over the idea of executing a 13-year-old girl even “more gleefully than over his dastardly homicidal attempt to kill these boys” and “when I heard Dr. Krohn testify in this case, to take the blood of these two boys, I could see his mouth water with the joy it gave him, and he showed all the delight and pleasure of myself and my young companions when we ate watermelon” and “I can never imagine a real physician who cared for life or who thought of anything excepting cash, gloating over his testimony, as Dr. Krohn did in this case.”
That’s a whole lot worse than calling someone a thug. Especially when done in front of a jury.
Darrow had set out to destroy the credibility of a witness. Trump wants to destroy the credibility of Chutkan and Smith. Much as there’s been a concerted effort to destroy Trump’s credibility. Trials often hinge on whom you believe.
There’s a First Amendment right for people to speak out, especially in their own defense. We don’t live in a monarchy that insulates Chutkan and her fellow devoted “public servants” from criticism.