WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors pressed their case Friday for a restricted gag order on former President Donald Trump, citing what they stated was a seamless sample of incendiary and intimidating statements within the case charging him with scheming to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 election.
Particular counsel Jack Smith’s group earlier this month requested an order aimed toward reining in Trump’s assaults on prosecutors, potential witnesses and different individuals concerned within the case. Trump’s attorneys have objected to the request, and U.S. District Choose Tanya Chutkan on Friday set courtroom arguments for Oct. 16.
In a movement Friday night, prosecutors reiterated the necessity for an order on Trump’s habits.
They stated his assaults have continued because the preliminary Sept. 15 request, citing essential feedback in a tv interview about witnesses referenced within the indictment — together with former Legal professional Normal William Barr — in addition to a social media put up from final week during which he instructed that Mark Milley, the retiring chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Employees, had dedicated treason and ought to be executed.
As well as, prosecutors famous an episode in South Carolina earlier this week during which he admired a Glock handgun throughout a go to to a gun retailer. Although a Trump spokesman initially claimed on social media that Trump had bought the weapon, he later deleted the put up and clarified that Trump had solely indicated that he wished to purchase one.
Regardless of that retraction, prosecutors wrote, Trump “re-posted a video of the incident” posted by one in every of his followers with a caption that instructed he had certainly purchased the weapon.
It was an instance, they stated, of Trump making an attempt to learn from incendiary actions however then keep away from accountability by having others round him “feign retraction.”
“The defendant both bought a gun in violation of the regulation and his circumstances of launch, or seeks to learn from his supporters’ mistaken perception that he did so,” prosecutors stated.
Trump’s attorneys earlier this week denounced the gag order request as an try and “unconstitutionally silence” his political speech. They referred to as the request a “determined try at censorship.”
Prosecutors rejected that characterization of their Friday night time movement.
“All it could restrict is the defendant’s use of his candidacy as a canopy for making prejudicial public statements about this case — and there’s no professional want for the defendant, in the middle of his marketing campaign, to assault recognized witnesses concerning the substance of their anticipated testimony or in any other case interact in materially prejudicial commentary in violation of the proposed order,” they wrote.
The case is at the moment set for trial March 4, 2024, in federal court docket in Washington.
Chutkan dominated towards the Trump group on Wednesday when she refused a protection request to step except for the case over feedback she’d made in different sentencing hearings that the attorneys stated referred to as into query her impartiality. Chutkan stated there was no motive for her to recuse.
