U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday night ordered a hearing to discuss a protective order proposed by special counsel Jack Smith's team to prevent him from publicizing evidence in the case.
Prosecutors asked Chutkan to issue a protective order after Trump issued a seeming threat on Truth Social, writing, "If you go after me, I'm coming after you!"
"The order — which is different from a so-called 'gag order' — would limit what information Trump and his legal team could share publicly about the case brought by special counsel Jack Smith," as the Associated Press noted. The order would not inhibit Trump from discussing the case in its entirety, nor would it limit him from speaking about aspects of the case that are already publicly available, per ABC News.
In response to Smith's filing, the ex-president's legal team issued a statement arguing that the post was directed at political interest groups, saying, the "Truth post cited is the definition of political speech." On Monday, the Trump's attorneys submitted their own filing to Chutkan, accusing Smith and his team of asking the judge to "assume the role of censor and impose content-based regulations on President Trump's political speech that would forbid him from publicly discussing or disclosing all non-public documents produced by the government, including both purportedly sensitive materials, and non-sensitive, potentially exculpatory documents."
Trump, the filing adds, "does not contest the government's claimed interest in restricting some of the documents it must produce" but "the need to protect that information does not require a blanket gag order over all documents produced by the government."
The special counsel's team in a quick response filed hours later slammed Trump's lawyers for attempting to advance a motion "designed to allow him to try this case in the media rather than in the courtroom."
"To facilitate the efficient production of discovery to the defense, the Government proposed a reasonable protective order consistent with current practice in this District," Smith's team wrote. "To safeguard witness privacy and the integrity of these proceedings, the Court should enter the Government's proposed protective order."
Trump's proposed protective order, Smith argued, "would lead to the public dissemination of discovery material."
Chutkan ordered the two sides to set a hearing for later this week.
Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann, who served on special counsel Bob Mueller's team, said it was "interesting" that Chutkan excused Trump's presence at the hearing "given his dangerous and contumacious social media posts."
"Agreeing to a hearing at all is indulgent of Trump and his far-fetched arguments about using discovery to try the case in public," tweeted former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman. "But the resolution of his arguments on Friday will not please him I think."
"Trump may win a few points in this battle (although Smith will likely win more) — but the speed at which this is moving suggests he will lose the war," tweeted Norm Eisen, who served as special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Donald Trump's first impeachment trial.
Retired California Superior Court Judge LaDoris Hazzard Cordell told CNN that Trump's rageful Truth was "clearly a threat."
"I don't know necessarily that that quote impacts the protective order, but that certainly would get me thinking if I were the trial judge about a gag order in this case," Cordell said. "It's clearly a threat, and a good trial judge doesn't just look at the law, you use common sense."
Cordell, who noted that she feels a gag order is impending, also felt that "Trump would violate it in a heartbeat and then we'll see what the judge does in terms of consequences for violating yet another court order."
"I absolutely can see it coming because this man cannot shut up. He's a 'chatty Charlie' and he's going to just talk and talk and he really doesn't care about rules that say you can speak or cannot speak," Cordell said.
"So this is where the test of a good trial judge comes about. If you're going to have a fair trial, it's going to be by the rules set by that person in the black robe. And if the rules are you do not talk about this other than in the court, because it's not punishment it's to ensure fair trial. If that doesn't happen, there have to be immediate consequences to violating a court order. Only in that way can everyone have respect for the system."
