A US judge has temporarily lifted a partial gag order she had imposed limiting Donald Trump’s public statements about the federal criminal case in which the former president is accusing of illegally attempting to undo his 2020 election loss.
Acting on the same day that a New York state judge fined Trump $5,000 for violating a gag order in a civil trial, US District Tanya Chutkan in Washington put on hold the order she issued earlier in the week while she considers the former president’s request for a longer pause while he challenges it.
On Friday lawyers for Trump asked Chutkan to lift the restrictions while he asks a US appeals court to strike down an order by the judge that they called “breathtakingly overbroad”.
Chutkan on Monday barred Trump from making public statements that “target” Special Counsel Jack Smith, who is prosecuting the case, and members of his staff.
The order also prohibits Trump from making comments disparaging court staff and potential witnesses in the case.
Trump in the past has called Smith, who was appointed as special counsel by US Attorney-General Merrick Garland, a “deranged lunatic” and a “thug”, among other insults.
Trump is facing four criminal cases and has made disparaging comments about prosecutors in each of them, as well as against the New York state attorney general who brought civil fraud charges against him.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he plotted to interfere unlawfully in the counting of votes and block the congressional certification of his 2020 loss to Democrat Joe Biden.
In the New York case, judge Arthur Engoron fined the former US president $5,000 for not complying with a partial gag order and threatened him with possible jail time for future violations.
The judge ordered the 77-year-old Trump to pay the fine within the next 10 days to the New York Lawyers’ Fund for Client Protection.
“Make no mistake: future violations, whether intentional or unintentional, will subject the violator to far more severe sanctions,” Engoron said in a court filing. “(These) may include, but are not limited to, steeper financial penalties, holding Donald Trump in contempt of court, and possibly imprisoning him pursuant to New York Judiciary Law.”
Engoron slapped a limited gag order on the former president on October 3 after he insulted the judge’s principal law clerk in a social media post on his Truth Social platform.
The offending post was removed from Truth Social the same day, but the judge complained in his filing on Friday that it remained on a Trump 2024 campaign website for 17 days, until the court asked on Thursday that it be taken down.
Engoron said Trump’s lawyers told him that the violation of the gag order was “inadvertent.”
“Giving the defendant the benefit of the doubt, he still violated the gag order,” the judge said.
“In the current overheated climate, incendiary untruths can, and in some cases already have, led to serious physical harm, and worse,” he added.
Trump has personally attacked the judge on numerous occasions, calling him a “Trump-hating judge”, but Engoron, in his verbal gag order, only ordered a halt to attacks on his court staff.
Trump: Fined $5,000 for violating a gag order issued by New York state Judge Engoron.
