On Monday, a left-wing federal judge issued a gag order forbidding President Donald Trump from making certain public statements about his federal case regarding January 6th.
As the New York Post reports, Obama-appointed Judge Tanya Chutkan, U.S. District Judge for the District of Columbia, declared that the former president is not allowed to make any statements criticizing prosecutors or court staff, and also cannot discuss any witnesses or testimony in the case against him.
“You keep talking about censorship like the defendant has unfettered First Amendment rights. He doesn’t,” Chutkan said to Trump attorney John Lauro during the morning hearing. “We’re not talking about censorship here. We’re talking restrictions to ensure there is a fair administration of justice on this case.”
President Trump, who was not present at the Monday hearing where the gag order was issued, denounced the decision as “unconstitutional,” and promised to appeal it.
“Today a judge put on a gag order,” Trump said at a campaign event in Iowa. “I’ll be the only politician in history that runs with a gag order where I’m not allowed to criticize people. Can you imagine this?”
“Do you believe this? I’m not allowed to criticize people, so we’ll see,” Trump continued. “We’ll appeal it and we’ll see but it’s so unconstitutional.”
His campaign also released an official, unsigned statement criticizing Chutkan’s decision, declaring that “today’s decision is an absolute abomination and another partisan knife stuck in the heart of our Democracy by Crooked Joe Biden, who was granted the right to muzzle his political opponent, the leading candidate for the Presidency in 2024.”
The case was brought against President Trump by Special Counsel Jack Smith regarding President Trump’s actions on January 6th, 2021, when a crowd of Trump supporters peacefully protested at the U.S. Capitol during the attempted counting of the electoral college votes in the 2020 election. Democrats and the mainstream media have repeatedly and falsely labeled the protest as an “insurrection,” and have accused President Trump of “inciting violence” despite his repeated calls for the protesters to remain peaceful.
Chutkan has been criticized as being too biased to handle the case, having previously donated to Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns and having expressed anti-Trump sentiments in the past. She has also been noted as repeatedly handing out harsher sentences for January 6th defendants than any other judge, often exceeding even the sentences recommended by prosecutors. However, Chutkan has refused to recuse herself from the case.