Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys are appealing a D.C. judge’s gag order that prohibits the Republican frontrunner from criticizing the special counsel who, at the behest of the Biden Justice Department, is running a political prosecution against him.
In the appeal filed Wednesday, Trump’s defense counsel protested the gag order handed down last month by D.C. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is presiding over the former president’s case related to his speech on the day of the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
“This is not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses,” Judge Chutkan reportedly said when she handed down the order. “This is about language that presents a danger to the administration of justice.”
Chutkan, despite being an activist judge with a record of unusually harsh sentences for pro-Trump demonstrators, refused to recuse herself from the politically charged case in September. In their Wednesday filing, Trump’s attorneys argued the gag order was both unprecedented and unconstitutional.
1. The Gag Order Is Unprecedented
Trump’s attorneys noted the former president made history as the first presidential frontrunner to face a gag order heading into the next election.
“The Supreme Court has ‘never allowed the government to prohibit candidates from communicating relevant information to voters during an election,’” they wrote, citing the 2002 Supreme Court case Republican Party of Minnesota v. White. “Accordingly, no court has ever imposed a gag order on the political speech of a candidate for public office, let alone the leading candidate
