How Many Parts Make a a Whole?
Judge Tanya Chutkan issues a “partial gag order” on Donald J. Trump.
Articles in the Washington Post, shortly after the order was issued in the Washington DC courtroom this morning, and subsequent comments made by Trump afterward, asked a question.
Should Donald Trump be treated any differently in court because he’s a presidential candidate?
I’m going to give my views on this “partial gag order”, but first, I want to take a crack at this question.
No, he’s no different than you, me, or anyone else. In my opinion, he’s already been shown WAY too much “preferential treatment”. And, for the life of me, I don’t understand why!
Is it because the courts are actually afraid of him?
Is it because he has so many stupid people actually having been sucked in by his con, and keep forking out millions of dollars to this scammer, that their money is what’s keeping him from being treated as a criminal with his charges would be treated?
Let’s face some facts here:
Donald J. Trump is a narcissistic, sociopathic, authoritarian.
Donald J. Trump has been indicted 4 times, in 4 different jurisdictions. Three Federal indictments and one state indictment.
Donald J. Trump had a total of 91 Felony counts which he’s been charged.
Donald J. Trump has shared this nations most Top Secret information with foreign governments, which are adversaries of this country, namely Russia. Namely Vladimir Putin, AND other Russian Oligarchs who then took the information to Putin.
Donald J. Trump has shared this nations most Top Secret, Classified documents with a millionaire from Australia. He did this at his home, in the Ball Room, at Mar-a-Lago, after he had taken these documents from the White House, and the National Archives, illegally. This Australian millionaire then shared this information with others outside Mar-a-Lago, in Australia. These secrets are extremely sensitive about our nuclear submarine program, the warheads they carry, and their top secret stealth capabilities. How often, when, and how easy it is for the submarines to get into our foreign adversaries waters around the world.
Donald J. Trump, while serving as the 45th President of the United States, took Top Secret, Classified, and Secret Service, documents and information from the National Archives. Made copies of this information and send it, by courier, which was a sitting member of the United States Senate, and hand delivered these copies to Russia. They were delivered to Vladimir Putin himself, or to a Russian Oligarchy who then delivered the documents to Putin.
Donald J. Trump has been a “close friend” of Vladimir Putin since the mid 70s when he married his first wife, who was the daughter of a Russian Oligarchy, and also a close friend of Putin when he was in the Russian government. It’s been learned, and proven, that Trump made numerous trips to Russia during the 70s, and 80s. Some trips were to visit with Putin himself, along with other high ranking Russian leaders, whom Putin introduced him to.
Donald J. Trump shared Top Secret, Classified Documents with visitors of the Oval Office during his presidency. Nine of which had been cleared to be briefed on the contents of any of the documents.
Now, with all this said, and I’m not going to get into his Civil cases in New York which are going on right now. This trial currently happening will cost Donald J. Trump upwards of $250 to $750 million dollars. That’s the decision currently being heard right now by the New York judge, which, isn’t jury trial because Trump’s lawyers did not get the request filed.
You know what they say about that?
Ohhh well! Sorry!
Now, in the Washington DC case, the judge has already admonished Trump several times about his ‘tweets’, ‘language’, ‘threats’, and comments’ he’s made about the trial, witnesses, court proceedings, and attorneys. He’s also had a ‘partial gag order’ placed in him in the New York trial because he falsely claimed that the judge’s clerk was the girlfriend of Chuck Schumer, posting a picture of the two of them, in public together, talking.
Now, Judge Tanya Chutkan has issued this new “partial gag order”.
“Mr. Trump is facing felony charges, and he does not get to respond to every criticism if that response could affect a potential witness. He doesn’t get to use all the words. Mr. Trump can certainly claim he’s being unfairly prosecuted, but I cannot imagine any other case where a defendant is allowed to call the prosecutor ‘deranged,’ or a ‘thug,’ and I will not permit it here simply because the defendant is running a political campaign.”
“I will prohibit statements about potential witnesses or the subject of their testimony,” Chutkan said. “If Mr. Trump wants to criticize his political rival, Mr. Pence, he may do so, but he cannot make statements about Mr. Pence’s role in the events in this case. … Without this restriction there is a real risk that other witnesses may be intimidated or unduly influenced, and that other witnesses may be reluctant to come forward lest they be subjected to the same harassment and intimidation.”
The incident in New York clearly weighed on Chutkan, who said she was “deeply disturbed” to see Trump single out a court clerk with a baseless and inflammatory claim. The judge said Trump’s campaign to return to the White House “does not give him carte blanche to vilify and implicitly encourage violence against public servants who are simply doing their job.”
Judge Chutkan rejected the prosecutors’ request that Trump be barred from making negative comments about D.C. residents. While the judge expressed distaste for Trump’s claim that he could not get a fair trial in what he has described as a “filthy crime-ridden embarrassment” of a city, she also said she could deal with such comments when sorting through potential jurors.
When Trump attorney, John Lauro, defended his client’s public statements by saying that Trump is “entitled to speak truth to oppression,” the judge cut him off, saying, “I do not need to hear any campaign rhetoric in my courtroom.”
Trump attorney John Lauro as he left the courtroom Monday.
Chutkan and Lauro jousted repeatedly during the hearing, and the judge at one point laughed when Lauro said there had been no threats and no intimidation from Trump. She cited Trump’s social media post about Milley, which claimed that a phone call the general made to his Chinese counterparts in early 2021 was “an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH.”
If Trump suggests “that someone is deserving of execution,” Chutkan said, “then it’s not a far stretch to imagine a situation where one of the millions of followers of this person decides to do that.”
Lauro argued that the statement about Milley was not a threat, and he said it would be nonsensical to limit the speech of politicians to try to prevent unpredictable acts of extremist violence.
Gaston, the prosecutor, said Lauro was trying to split hairs and Trump’s meaning was clear: “We both know that the tweet or the post about General Milley was a threat. It was a threat to him, and it was a threat to all witnesses in this case: If you come after the defendant, he will come after you.”
Lauro also said a gag order was unwise partly because it would be impossible to enforce. “Is your honor going to put President Trump in jail during the course of a campaign?” the lawyer asked.
Chutkan did not reply.
“You keep talking about censorship like the defendant has unfettered First Amendment rights. He doesn’t,” U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan told Trump’s legal team. “We’re not talking about censorship here. We’re talking restrictions to ensure there is a fair administration of justice on this case.”
Legal experts say the order he’s under also is pretty standard. Defendants in all cases are instructed not to talk to co-defendants or witnesses or victims unless it’s through an attorney, said Evan Gotlob, a former prosecutor who is now a partner with the Saul Ewing law firm.
The courts have never upheld First Amendment rights as absolute, not even for politicians, said Kristy Parker, a former federal prosecutor now with the nonpartisan advocacy group Protect Democracy.
“You won’t find anything in the Constitution anywhere that talks about exceptions for political candidates,” she said.
But at the same time, never in American history has a former president – and leading contender for the next presidential election – been under a gag order from the courts.
At a campaign stop today (Monday) in Iowa, Trump said: “They put a gag order on me, and I’m not supposed to be talking about things that bad people do, and so we’ll be appealing very quickly,” Trump said. He added, “I’ll be the only politician in history where I won’t be allowed to criticize people.”
Questions to ponder:
How long do you think it will take Trump to violate this order?
Not IF, but WHEN he does violate it, what do you believe will be the judges next step? Do you believe she’ll impose a fine, ‘House Arrest’, or jail time?
We ALL know that Trump will not be able to keep his mouth shut. It will be interesting to see what happens to this overgrown child next. I know what would have already happened if it was you or me. We would have been remanded to jail at the very first hearing. All the rest of this nonsense with him is all window dressing. It would have never had the opportunity to occur to start with if he was a normal citizen, which in reality, he is. Just because he’s a ‘presidential candidate’ he’s not supposed to be receiving all this preferential treatment he’s receiving.
The above article was written from new reports from the New York Times, and articles from the Washington Post. Links are provided below:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2023/10/16/us/trump-gag-order-election-case-news
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/politics/trump-claims-database/?itid=lk_inline_manual_9
Are people who are nuts allowed to run for president? Asking for a fiend.
And to think that person becomes commander in chief of our military with access to all of our secrets. We’ve seen how that works out.