Court Upholds Gag Order On Trump In Washington Case But Narrows Restrictions On His Speech.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court in Washington largely upheld
a gag order on Donald Trump in his 2020
election interference case on Friday, but narrowed the restrictions on his speech to allow the former president to criticize the special counsel who brought the case.
The three-judge panel’s ruling modifies the gag order, permitting the Republican 2024 presidential front-runner to make disparaging comments about
special counsel Jack Smith, but it reimposes limits on what he can say about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses in the case and about court staff and other lawyers.
The unanimous ruling is mostly a win for Smith’s team, with the judges agreeing with prosecutors that Trump’s often-incendiary comments about participants in the case can have a damaging practical impact and rejecting claims by defense attorneys that restrictions on the ex-president’s speech amount to an unconstitutional muzzling. It lays out fresh parameters about what Trump can and cannot say about the case as he both prepares for a March trial and campaigns to reclaim the White House.