Appeals court temporarily lifts Trump gag order in D.C. case

A federal appeals court on Friday lifted a gag order reining in Donald Trump’s comments about the criminal election-subversion case pending against him in Washington.

At the former president’s request, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appealstemporarily lifted U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order prohibiting Trump from using his public statements to target special counsel Jack Smith and his team, court officials and potential witnesses in the case.

The appeals court’s action makes it likely that the gag order, which Trump contends violates his First Amendment rights and those of his supporters, will be sidelined for more than two weeks and perhaps longer. Trump has also complained that the order interferes with his rights as a presidential candidate to argue to voters that he is being politically persecuted by the Biden administration.

The D.C. Circuit set oral arguments on the gag order issue for Nov. 20. The panel issuing the order consisted of two Obama appointees — Patricia Millett and Cornelia Pillard — as well as the court’s newest member, Biden appointee Bradley Garcia.

The panel’s two-page order did not offer a detailed explanation for the court’s action. However, the judges included boiler-plate language indicating that the “administrative stay” was not a judgment on the merits of Chutkan’s order and was simply to give the panel time to review the case.

A spokesperson for Smith’s office declined to comment on the appeals court’s move.

Chutkan issued the gag order in writing on Oct. 17 at the request of Smith’s team, which contended Trump’s repeated inflammatory attacks on witnesses, prosecutors, the judge and Washington, D.C., itself threatened to damage the integrity of his upcoming trial, slated to begin March 4.

Chutkan agreed that Trump’s incendiary comments threatened the proceedings. Her order barred all parties in the case from “targeting” witnesses, prosecutors and court staff. She also emphasized that Trump would be permitted to criticize her, the Biden administration and the Justice Department, assert his innocence and generally allege that his prosecution is politically motivated.

But Trump has called the restrictions an unprecedented attack on his free speech, particularly amid the 2024 presidential campaign cycle. Chutkan has repeatedly emphasized that she would not allow presidential politics or the campaign schedule to influence her decision-making.

After Trump sought a stay from Chutkan, she suspended her order for about a week, but reinstated it on Sunday after declaring herself to be unpersuaded by his legal team’s arguments that the directive is unduly vague and overbroad.

Trump is also under a gag order issued in connection with a civil suit the New York Attorney General Tish James filed targeting alleged pervasive fraud in his real estate empire. Trump has been twice fined by the judge there, for a total of $15,000, for violating a directive to cease public statements about the judge’s clerk and other court staff.

Sparring over the scope of the gag order in that case continued on Friday, with the judge issuing a written order declaring that lawyers in the case were also now covered by the directive.