OAN’s Daniel Baldwin
3:45 PM – Wednesday, October 18, 2023
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan’s gag order against former President Donald Trump has legal experts shaking their heads.
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“This is blatantly unconstitutional,” Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project, told One America News. “You have this deranged, Biden special counsel, Jack Smith, teaming up with this partisan DC Obama judge, Tanya Chukan, to put this gag order on a criminal defendant. If there is anyone in America who has the right to speak out against the prosecutor in the process, it is a criminal defendant.”
Chutkan formally issued a gag order on Trump on Tuesday morning, ruling that “any interested parties” are prohibited “from making any public statements, or directing others to make any public statements, that target (1) the Special Counsel prosecuting this case or his staff; (2) defense counsel or their staff; (3) any of this court’s staff or other supporting personnel; or (4) any reasonably foreseeable witness or the substance of their testimony.”
Davis pointed out that Chutkan fails to define what an “interested party” constitutes though.
“[The gag order is] a trap,” Davis said. “So Jack Smith and Tanya Chutkan can try to imprison their political enemies. They’re clearly trying to go after the Trump campaign and his supporters.”
“The Article III Project has done over 1500 media hits since the Mar-a-Lago raid 14 months ago supporting and defending President Trump,” Davis continued. “Are we a surrogate? Does that mean that I can’t call Jack Smith deranged? Does that mean that I can’t call this DC Obama Judge partisan? There is no way in hell they are going to silence me. They have to put me in jail first.”
Trump’s legal team filed a notice to appeal shortly after the gag order was issued.
“The Sixth Amendment protects the criminal defendant’s, not the government’s, right to a fair trial. The First Amendment protects American citizens’, not the government’s right to speak out,” Davis said. “This is clearly illegal under the local rule she cites. It’s clearly unconstitutional under the First Amendment and the Sixth Amendment. The DC circuit should vacate this order, but the problem is the DC circuit is stacked with Obama partisans.”
“So the Supreme Court has discretionary review,” Davis continued. “They don’t have to take this case, but they absolutely must take this case, because we don’t live in a third world, Marxist hellhole where you can gag your political enemies.”
The day Chutkan granted and denied in part Special Counsel Jack Smith’s request for a gag order, Trump told supporters in Iowa that he would be willing to go to jail to save the country.
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