Maybe someone can finally get Donald Trump to shut up:
Special counsel Jack Smith is asking a judge to issue a gag order against former President Donald Trump, prohibiting him from attacking prosecutors, the judge or potential witnesses who may testify in his federal criminal trial stemming from his effort to subvert the 2020 election.
I'm basically in favor of anything that pisses off Trump, so I'm rooting for the gag order. Nobody deserves one more.
This is going to be hilarious.
I have been pinning for something like this since '16.
1916, or 1816?
Everything takes too damn long. Now the pundits will all be fretting about how "polarizing" it would be if trump were to be treated like any other indicted person and detained pending trial for shooting off his big mouth. In fact, they're already fretting about how even curtailing his social media incitements would be "infringing on his First Amendment rights as a presidential candidate."
News flash: political candidates do not have EXTRA free speech rights, no more than you or I do.
I feel for Judge Chutkan because if she does what must be done, millions of MAGA cultists will be planning her assassination. But sometimes history is like that.
I imagine they already are.
The problem with treating Trump like any other indicted person is that Trump isn't like any other indicted person. I'm not aware of ANY other accused criminal who publicly abuses the prosecutors, publicly abuses the judges, publicly threatens the witnesses, even indirectly, and then goes on national television or social media equivalent and confesses to his crimes.
Even if Trump weren't a former president, a current candidate for office, and a (claimed) billionaire, he would still be pretty much an unprecedented problem. Trump is unique, and I don't mean that as a compliment.
So far the only gag order involves me gagging every time I see his miserable puss.
????????????
Perfect!
And lo, having wished, it is given unto you.
“Biden Prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith, has asked the Court to limit 45th President, and leading Republican Nominee (by more than 50 points, & beating Dems!) DONALD J. TRUMP’S, PUBLIC STATEMENTS,” Trump wrote on Friday. “So, I’m campaigning for President against an incompetent person who has WEAPONIZED the DOJ & FBI to go after his Political Opponent, & I am not allowed to COMMENT? They Leak, Lie, & Sue, & they won’t allow me to SPEAK?”
“How else would I explain that Jack Smith is DERANGED, or Crooked Joe is INCOMPETENT?”
Because nothing says thoughtful introspection like all caps.
It's not all caps, just more than is appropriate.
"Capital letters deserve capital punishment."
That's from one of the earliest known gag orders, in the Code of Hammurabi, if I'm not mistaken. Time to bring it back. Problem solved.
I never would have thought Jack Smith was deranged until I read it in all caps.
Jack Smith rests his case. OMG, Trump is a freaking idiot.
Yet worshiped by ~40% of people in the US
The only way to make the Defendant stop blathering is with an actual gag. But seriously. Lock him up! And take away is tweet-X phone, too. That organism is incapable of shutting up, of not spewing lies constantly, of not making threats, of not insulting. At least in a prison cell, fewer people have to be subjected to it.
Yes, I vote for a ball gag order. And a mask. And cuffs.
Almost sounds like you are asking for someone out of a little black book. Not that DJT, or Malaria, or Jr, or Eric have one. But people say they might.....
Could we have US Marshalls stuff an actual sock into his pie hole on pay-per-view? I’d ante up!
As much as I want him to bite his tongue & also lose his ability to send messages on "Truth Social" or X, I'm certain that all those involved in the trials fear the responses of his mob.
On The Washington Post site, someone was demanding that his Secret Service protection be ended, despite the fact that it is accorded by law to former presidents - the commenter recommended that he "hire his own army."
And it wasn't snark.
We can't let the threats Trump makes stop us from following the law. If we let the threat of his supporters fomenting violence stop us from implementing the law we've already lost our democracy. This is the goal of the White Supremacist right.
Please see my response father down; while I began it directly under your comment, I was interrupted, & the position slipped - a timing issue?
Just take all the Secret Service agents that deleted their text messages during 1/6 and put them in prison with Donald. Problem solved.
Well, I'm thinking that a law to strip former presidents of their Secret Service protection if they're sentenced to prison is something the United States ought to have. And it needs to be put in place ASAP. Of course, a vote of 2/3 of each house of Congress could lift the ban, just like the Insurrection Clause.
Trump, shut up? Riiiight. Don't get me wrong -- I like this, but it's like telling gravity to quit pulling.
+1
It’s obvious he has no respect for women or minorities, only being locked up would be enough. And she’s both.
I hope she has enough mojo to televise the trial so everyone can see.
Politico report (by Josh Gerstein and Kyle Cheney) has this excellent passage. I wish more news outlets would do the same.
"Taken together, the government’s filings over a period of several months present an extraordinary picture of a former president as a uniquely dangerous threat to the courts, the justice system and those who would align against him in his four criminal cases. They say he uses that platform — primarily Truth Social and TV interviews — to spread knowing lies about his critics and the court process in ways that stoke the fury of his followers, some of whom feel compelled to act in his name."
I read the 24 page filing and Politico gets the essential points. (Filing had several Trump social media posts and various references to interviews and Trump lawyers.)
"...present an extraordinary picture of a former president as a uniquely dangerous threat to the courts, the justice system..."
And that is when he is not a president.
Understood. However, it is better to use enough restraint to avoid the distinct possibility of more casualties than on J6 & in the aftermath.
.I was simply stating what I'm fairly certain that all of those involved in doing the right thing are right to fear & not just for themselves. Preparations to ensure the safety of so many people in multiple locations can't guarantee that there will be no casualties.
I already lost one longtime Muslim friend, a US citizen, to her family's insistence that she return to Iran following her husband's death & when trump's vicious harangues were resulting in vigilantes murdering people they mistook for Muslims - including a Hindu man in my home state. I don't want to see more victims of his cult.
.
And although our democracy is certainly imperiled, I won't declare it defeated until it is gone - & we have turned out to vote, protest, whatever is needed to end voter suppression & gerrymandering of all sorts.
N.B. This was started as a reply to one to my comment, but through delay became a new comment unrelated to that conversation- sorry!
This is the part where, had Section 230 of CDA been at least modified, it would have made it a lot easier to target platforms that allowed the publishing of statements that were knowingly and verifiably false as well as those that repeated the pattern of inducing violence against directed individuals.
Regardless, I think the proposed gag order will be substantially limited in scope.
I think the judge will limit it to (1) attempts to direct and indirect messaging to witnesses*, (2) attacks on witnesses that knowingly would induce violence, (3) and posts that disparage, and thus prejudicially and libelously taint the character of witnesses.
The next issue will be sanctions. Fines are not good enough as he's in a position to fundraise and therefore pay for such fines. I think he has to be threatened with jail time -- is the judge willing to go that far? This is the holdup I can't work around. She can only move up the trial date so much before she steps on the defendant's rights.
_____
* -- Trump social media post stated: "I am reading reports that failed former Lt. Governor of Georgia, Jeff Duncan, will be testifying before the Fulton County Grand Jury. He shouldn’t."
Sanctions are the ultimate problem. Whatever the judge does or orders, the one thing we can really count on is that as sure as the sun rises in the east, trump will escalate. He will respond by throwing out even more extravagant and florid language accusing Smith, the DOJ, Biden, Chutkan, and probably Willis and Bragg and James of conspiring together and with unnamed other malign forces to deprive him and all his voters and followers of their fundamental humanity, etc etc. If what he did today in DC was at 7 on a scale of 10, he'll come back at 11 right away and we all know he can ramp it up to 18 at will.
It's always his MO-- push things and people, and keep pushing harder, and make everything into a test of being with him or against him as he goes to greater and greater extremes. Everything. Every. Single. Thing.
Our best hope may be that he drives himself into an apoplectic rage that his system can no longer handle. It would be an act of pure patriotism. But I'm afraid he's far too calculating to let himself just lose it like that.
I have an idea for a sanctions regime:
Every time Smith files a complaint that Trump has violated the gag order, Trump shall be required to come into court for a hearing of the complaint. If there's a ruling that he violated the gag order, his bail shall be raised by $500K for the first violation, then increased by an additional $1M for each subsequent violation. If he cannot make bail at that hearing, he shall be placed in jail in an isolated ward until which time he either goes to trial or makes bail.
Seems fair, I think.
+1
I like this idea.
It would hit him where he lives-- in the moneybags-- which I like, and inconvenience him by making him show up in court at the judge's bidding (don't know whether actual appearance is waivable or not, though).
OTOH it's at least as open to exploitation as any other sanction. For fund-raising of course, but even more for staged grand entrances like his arraignment trip to Atlanta, with its armadas of (hired actors or motorcycle clubs given costumes to act as) "police" escorts at both departure and arrival, made to look like honor guards.
But then he'll make a martyrdom spectacle of any limitation and this would actually take something meaningful from him, so it might be the least bad way to go. Moving up the trial date would be fitting too, but time-to-prepare would be a big worry on appeal if convicted.
Legal analysis I've seen suggests Judge Chutkan will likely respond by moving up the trial date.
I believe we have all be hoping for this. I swear this is how he rally's his mephitic base. Put a filthy sock in his maw and spank him. Then fine him, severely. But then, he will squeeze his megats for cash..
Does anyone have any idea how many lawyers t-Rump has gone through since his favourite, way back?
Yeah, like that'll work.
If Trump actually complies with a gag order he'll just get the baboon colony to poison the jury pool for him.
A successfully imposed gag order will set off a firestorm of psychotic horseshit, every one of those idiots trying every way they can 'to get the message out'.
Jim Jordan, Marjorie Taylor Greene, --could a court shut them up?