The judge in the federal trial of former US President Donald Trump over his alleged unlawful attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election has reinstated restrictions on any public statements by the parties to prosecutors, court staff and witnesses.
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The judge of this trial, scheduled for March 4 in Washington, Tanya Chutkan, announced this ban on October 16, affecting both the prosecution and the defense. Nevertheless, it suspended proceedings on October 20 after Donald Trump’s lawyers filed an appeal, giving the parties until October 28 to present their arguments.
In its decision to restore these restrictions, published overnight from Sunday to Monday, it cites in particular a comment that the defendant published on his network Truth Social on October 24, after the suspension, about his last chief of staff, Mark Meadows .
The ex-president raised the possibility that he would testify against him in return for an offer of immunity from special prosecutor Jack Smith, behavior he said was “weak and cowardly.” “I don’t think Mark Meadows is one of them, but who knows?” he concluded.
Such an attack on a potential witness would certainly fall under the ban, the judge emphasized.
The favorite in the Republican primaries reacted on his network on Monday by accusing the judge of “hating” him and not being able to guarantee him a fair trial.
Judge Chutkan in September rejected a request from the former president’s lawyers to dismiss herself, asserting her impartiality.
Following the verdict, Donald Trump is once again banned from calling Jack Smith a “crazy” and his colleagues “thugs.”
But he can continue to bash his Democratic successor Joe Biden, who has been systematically labeled a “villain,” or accuse his administration of exploiting justice to exclude him from the race for the White House in 2024.