Trump asks Federal Court of Appeals to lift ban on silence in election cases

Lawyers for former President Donald J. Trump filed an emergency request Thursday with a federal appeals court to lift the silence order imposed on him in the criminal case in which he is accused of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

The lawyers asked the appeals court to stay the pause on the order until it makes a final decision on whether the order should have been issued in the first place.

“No court in American history has imposed a gag order on a criminal defendant actively campaigning for public office — let alone the leading candidate for president of the United States,” the lawyers wrote in their 11th-hour petition to the United States Court of Justice. Call for the District of Columbia Circuit.

“That centuries-long practice was broken,” the lawyers added, when a federal judge in Washington issued the gag order last month, “muzzling President Trump’s most important political speech during a historic presidential campaign.”

Mr. Trump’s lawyers asked the appeals court to rule on their request for a stay by Nov. 10. They suggested that they would seek relief from the Supreme Court if the appellate judges denied their request.

The silence order, imposed by Judge Tanya S. Chutkan of the Federal District Court in Washington, was issued against Mr. Trump on October 16 to prevent him from targeting members of the judicial staff, prosecutors who worked on the case and any people who might appear. as witnesses in the proceedings.

It followed a relentless barrage of social media posts from Mr. Trump, threatening not only Judge Chutkan but also the special counsel, Jack Smith, who is overseeing the former president’s two federal prosecutions.

The long battle over the gag order, with its continued back-and-forth, has pitted two visions of Mr. Trump against each other.

Prosecutors working for Mr. Smith have sought to portray the former president as a recalcitrant and recurrent social media abuser whose often bellicose posts have had dangerous consequences in the real world.

In particular, they pointed to a message Trump posted online shortly after Judge Chutkan was assigned to the election case in August. “If you come after me, I’ll come after you!” the message said.

One day after it was posted, a Texas woman called Judge Chutkan’s chambers and threatened to kill her. The caller has now been arrested.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers, by contrast, have tried, without evidence, to portray the gag order as an attempt by President Biden to silence his leading opponent in the 2024 election as the campaign heats up. The former president’s lawyers have argued that the order undermines Mr. Trump’s First Amendment right to freely express his belief that election interference prosecutions are in fact political prosecutions — despite the fact that Judge Chutkan expressly allowed him to do so. to criticize the matter, Mr. Biden and his administration.

Within days of the imposition, Trump’s legal team appealed the order and asked Judge Chutkan to suspend it while the appeals court considered their request. Judge Chutkan temporarily froze the order for a week, but only to invite more court documents on the request for a longer stay pending the appeal.

Late on Sunday evening, Judge Chutkan decided to lift the temporary stay. She also denied Mr. Trump’s broader request to freeze the order until the appeals court completed its review.

In reinstating the order, Judge Chutkan noted that Trump had used the weeklong period when he was free from restrictions to once again go after Smith and attack potential government witnesses, including his former White House chief of staff , Mark Meadows. .

Within hours of the move, Mr. Trump went after her again, calling her a “highly biased, Trump-hating judge” and questioning the constitutionality of her decision.