Jack Smith Says Trump Does Not Have an ‘Unfettered Right to Try His Case in the Media’

Special Counsel Jack Smith’s office defended a gag order issued against former President 👤Donald Trump in his 2020 election case Tuesday by arguing that Trump does not have “an unfettered right to try his case in the media.”

Trump’s lawyers wrote last week that District Judge Tanya Chutkan “lacks the authority to muzzle” the former president’s speech in violation of his First Amendment rights and the rights of “tens of millions of Americans to engage in and hear core political speech in the middle of an ongoing Presidential campaign.” Prosecutors pushed back in a 67-page filingTuesday, explaining that district courts have “an affirmative duty” to prevent trial participants from making statements that are likely to “prejudice” the proceedings.

“There has never been a criminal case in which a court has granted a defendant an unfettered right to try his case in the media, malign the prosecutor and his family, and—after threatening witnesses and others … target specific witnesses with attacks on their character and credibility, calling one a ‘weakling[]’ and a ‘coward[]’ and suggesting that another’s actions warrant the ‘punishment’ of ‘DEATH!’” prosecutors wrote.

Citing the Supreme Court’s 1966 decision in Sheppard v. Maxwell, Smith’s office said that the court can act when a party tries to influence the case “through the use of the meeting-hall, the radio, and the newspaper” instead of legal argument.