The court ruled that Mark Meadows, who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff, must fight the charges against him in state court in Atlanta. | Alex Brandon/AP
Legal
Trump’s former White House chief of staff must face the election-related charges in state court.
By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN
Updated
A federal appeals court has denied Mark Meadows’ bid to move his Georgia-based criminal charges into federal court, rejecting a procedural gambit that could have derailed the state’s election-related charges against not only Meadows but also Donald Trump.
In an unsparing opinion written by a stalwart conservative judge, the court ruled that Meadows, who served as Trump’s White House chief of staff, must fight the charges against him in state court in Atlanta. Meadows had aimed to transfer the charges before a federal judge in hopes of having them quickly tossed out.
Meadows could appeal Monday’s ruling to the Supreme Court. But for now, the ruling from a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals keeps on track Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ racketeering prosecution of Trump, Meadows and a dozen other allies for efforts connected to Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election. Former Justice Department official Jeff Clark and three GOP activists who falsely signed Electoral College paperwork are also seeking to transfer their cases to federal court, though Monday’s ruling is likely a harbinger of doom for those efforts.
The 3-0 decision was authored by the court’s conservative chief judge, William Pryor, and it came unusually quickly — just three days after the panel heard oral arguments and expressed skepticism about Meadows’ legal theories. Had the judges agreed with Meadows and transferred the charges to federal court, it could have upended the case against Trump and all of the defendants, causing significant delays and even a potential ruling that the matter could be dismissed altogether because of its relationship to Trump’s authority as president.
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Former President Donald Trump sits at the defense table with his defense team in a Manhattan court, Tuesday, April 4, 2023, in New York. | Pool photo by Seth Wenig
ELECTIONS
Pollsters have already started to explore what effect, if any, a criminal conviction before the election would have on Trump’s support.
By STEVEN SHEPARD
It’s the go-to refrain for Democrats watching Joe Biden fall behind Donald Trump in polls: Just wait until Trump is convicted.
Yes, Biden’s historically unpopular. Yes, views of his job performance are growing increasingly negative. But if a jury of Trump’s peers in Manhattan, or South Florida, or Atlanta or Washington convicts him before Election Day, they say, it would have a dramatic impact on the race.
They’re probably wrong.
The evidence so far suggests the race might shift only slightly, by a few points. That could be important in another close election, but it’s not the kind of Trump collapse that Democrats may hope for — or Biden may need if his numbers don’t improve.
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Former President Donald Trump speaks during a commit to caucus rally on Dec. 13, 2023, in Coralville, Iowa. | Charlie Neibergall/AP
Playbook Deep Dive
A week of new developments in impeachment, Donald Trump’s D.C. case, and Hunter Biden’s congressional inquiry showcased how the collision of law and politics will determine much of Republicans’ and Democrats’ political fortunes in 2024.
By POLITICO STAFF
This week, the House of Representatives voted to initiate impeachment proceedings against President Joe Biden.
Outside the Capitol, Biden’s son Hunter, who was recently charged with federal firearms and tax crimes, made a rare public media appearance and condemned Republicans for their “baseless inquiry.”
On the same day, across the street, the Supreme Court said it would take up a case that could decide the fate of two of the four criminal charges against Donald Trump in the D.C. election subversion case.
That was just Wednesday in Washington.
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Attorney John Eastman, the architect of a legal strategy aimed at keeping former President Donald Trump in power, listens to questions from reporters after a hearing in Los Angeles, Tuesday, June 20, 2023. | Jae C. Hong/AP
Legal
Eastman, a former top Trump attorney, is facing the loss of his law license in California — and the special counsel’s office appears to be interested in materials from that case.
By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN
Federal prosecutors don’t appear to be done with John Eastman just yet.
On Monday, a paralegal for special counsel Jack Smith’s office ordered transcripts from the recent disbarment trial of the former Donald Trump attorney. The move signals that prosecutors are still keeping tabs on Eastman, who helped orchestrate Trump’s last-ditch bid to remain in power despite his defeat in the 2020 election.
Eastman is one of six alleged co-conspirators in the federal indictment that Smith obtained against Trump in August in Washington, D.C. Eastman has not been charged in that case, but he has been charged alongside Trump and other allies in a separate criminal case involving election interference in Georgia.
The transcript order request was lodged as an entry on the docket in the State Bar Court of California, where state authorities are attempting to strip Eastman of his law license. An order form obtained by POLITICO shows the transcripts were delivered to a room at the Justice Department that Smith’s team has listed on court filings.
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Rudy Giuliani’s allegations have all been debunked repeatedly by elections investigators. | Jose Luis Magana/AP
Legal
Shaye Moss took the witness stand in a trial over how much money Rudy Giuliani will have to pay in damages.
By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN
Shaye Moss woke up on Dec. 4, 2020, thinking she might be in line for a promotion after overseeing a grueling but accurate count of presidential ballots in Atlanta’s State Farm Arena.
Instead, she stepped into a nightmare.
That day, the Trump campaign and Rudy Giuliani began spreading and promoting a lie that Moss was at the center of a vote-stealing effort to flip votes in Georgia from Donald Trump to Joe Biden. And it precipitated a torrent of threats and racist attacks that haven’t stopped since.
“I was afraid for my life,” Moss told jurors from the witness stand Tuesday in a Washington, D.C., courthouse where she and her mother, Ruby Freeman, are seeking tens of millions of dollars in damages from Giuliani.
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The filing is the latest glimpse into the extraordinary evidence special counsel Jack Smith has amassed in his probe. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Legal
Jack Smith indicated that he plans to call an expert witness who extracted and reviewed data copied from Trump’s phone.
By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN
Updated
Special counsel Jack Smith has extracted data from the cell phone Donald Trump used while in the White House and plans to present evidence of his findings to a Washington, D.C. jury to demonstrate how Trump used the phone in the weeks during which he attempted to subvert the 2020 election.
In a court filing Monday, Smith indicated that he plans to call an expert witness who extracted and reviewed data copied from Trump’s phone, as well as a phone used by another unidentified individual in Trump’s orbit.
The data from Trump’s phone could reveal day-to-day details of his final weeks in office, including his daily movements, his Twitter habits and any other aides who had access to his accounts and devices. The data, for example, could help show whether Trump personally approved or sent a fateful tweet attacking his vice president, Mike Pence, during the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol.
It’s unclear, though, what the extent of Smith’s access to Trump’s phone was. While Smith described in the filing using the data to view images, websites and locations, it’s unclear if he accessed the substance of Trump’s communications or if anything was shielded due to executive privilege or other limits.
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By coming directly to the Supreme Court, special counsel Jack Smith is hoping to bypass a federal appeals court. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Legal
Trump’s election-subversion trial, scheduled for next March, could be indefinitely delayed without the Supreme Court’s swift intervention, the special counsel warned.
By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN
Updated
Special counsel Jack Smith is urging the Supreme Court to urgently resolve Donald Trump’s claim that he’s immune from prosecution for charges related to his bid to subvert the 2020 election.
Without the Supreme Court’s swift intervention, Trump’s trial could be indefinitely delayed, the special counsel warned in a petition to the high court on Monday.
That’s because the trial, scheduled to begin March 4, is effectively suspended while Trump pursues his appeal of the trial judge’s ruling rejecting his immunity arguments, Smith wrote. Resolution of the novel legal question is necessary to ensure the case proceeds “promptly,” he argued.
By coming directly to the Supreme Court, Smith is hoping to bypass a federal appeals court and is mounting an aggressive bid to keep the timing of the election-focused trial on track. If the March 4 trial date sticks, it would be the first trial for Trump in the four criminal cases he is facing as he mounts a bid for re-election to the White House.
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Prosecutors working for special counsel Jack Smith, seen here speaking to the media about his indictment of Donald Trump on Aug. 1, 2023, argued for “the public’s strong interest in a prompt trial.” | J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Legal
The timing of Trump’s immunity appeal could dictate whether the election-subversion case goes to a jury before the general-election campaign.
By JOSH GERSTEIN and KYLE CHENEY
Prosecutors are urging a federal judge not to disturb the first trial date former President Donald Trump is facing in his four pending criminal cases, arguing that an appeal he filed last week doesn’t mean all aspects of the election-subversion prosecution pending in Washington have to grind to a halt.
“In light of the public’s strong interest in a prompt trial, the Government will seek to ensure that the trial proceeds as scheduled,” senior assistant special counsels Molly Gaston and Thomas Windom wrote in a brief court filing Sunday urging the judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, to reject Trump’s proposed delays.
The outcome of this fight may determine whether Trump faces any of his four pending criminal trials in 2024. His other three remain in flux or unscheduled. And if the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court consider the former president’s immunity claims on their typical timelines, that may force Chutkan to slow down her own.
While lawyers from special counsel Jack Smith’s team pleaded with Chutkan not to alter the March 4 date, they appeared to concede that Trump’s defense won’t be obliged to respond to most legal issues in the case while his appeal claiming presidential immunity is pending at the D.C. Circuit.
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Rudy Giuliani falsely accused two Georgia election workers of manipulating ballots in 2020. | Charles Krupa/AP
Legal
A damages trial begins Monday in a case in which a judge has already ruled that Rudy Giuliani is liable for defamation.
By KYLE CHENEY
When Rudy Giuliani steps into federal court on Monday, the only mystery will be how severely he is sanctioned for lies about the 2020 election.
U.S. District Court Judge Beryl Howell has already found him liable for defaming two Georgia election workers — Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss — who faced threats and harassment after Giuliani and Donald Trump falsely accused them of manipulating ballots after the 2020 election. Those lies fueled conspiracy theories that have festered to this day.
Now, a jury in Washington, D.C., will be asked to determine the amount of damages Giuliani must pay for defamation, infliction of emotional distress and other punitive costs. Freeman and Moss haven’t specified a precise amount but are instead preparing to introduce expert testimony to estimate the harm they have experienced.
The damages trial is the latest form of accountability for those who aided Trump’s bid to subvert the 2020 election. While criminal proceedings against Trump, Giuliani and others have inched along, efforts to punish the perpetrators in other ways — from civil lawsuits to disbarment proceedings — have moved more briskly. For example, Giuliani’s law license was suspended last year after D.C. bar authorities concluded he violated professional ethics in his efforts to throw out millions of Pennsylvania votes. A decision on whether to make that sanction permanent is still pending.
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Maricopa County ballots cast in the 2020 election are examined and recounted by contractors seeking evidence to support claims by Trump supporters of malfeasance and interference in Phoenix, Ariz., on May 6, 2021. | Matt York/AP
Legal
In a new filing, his team described interviewing more than a dozen of the top intelligence officials in Trump’s administration.
By KYLE CHENEY
Special counsel Jack Smith on Saturday sharply rejected former President Donald Trump’s contention that foreign governments may have changed votes in the 2020 election, laying bare new details about his team’s extensive probe of the matter and its access to a vast array of senior intelligence officials in Trump’s administration.
In a 45-page filing, Smith’s team describes interviewing more than a dozen of the top intelligence officials in Trump’s administration — from his director of national intelligence to the administrator of the NSA to Trump’s personal intelligence briefer — about any evidence that foreign governments had penetrated systems that counted votes in 2020.
“The answer from every single official was no,” senior assistant special counsel Thomas Windom writes in the filing.
The filing was part of the special counsel’s opposition to a bid by Trump to access a broad swath of classified intelligence as part of his defense against charges that he conspired to subvert the 2020 election and disenfranchise millions of voters, culminating in the violent Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Trump has argued that foreign governments fueled his supporters’ concerns about election integrity and that some classified evidence revealed potential meddling that justified his own professed fears about fraud.
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Special counsel Jack Smith speaks to the media about an indictment of former President Donald Trump, on Aug. 1, 2023, at an office of the Department of Justice in Washington. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Legal
The special counsel is seeking a judge’s permission to introduce evidence that may help jurors assess Trump’s intent in the weeks leading to Jan. 6.
By KYLE CHENEY
Special counsel Jack Smith wants a Washington, D.C. jury to hear about Donald Trump’s efforts to sow false doubts about the two presidential elections that preceded his failed 2020 campaign.
The special counsel’s team says Trump’s previous attempts to convince Americans that the elections of 2012 and 2016 were being stolen laid the foundation for what would become a criminal effort to overturn the 2020 election after his loss to Joe Biden.
“They demonstrate the defendant’s common plan of falsely blaming fraud for election results he does not like,” senior assistant special counsel Molly Gaston wrote in a nine-page court filing.
Smith is seeking permission from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to introduce evidence that isn’t specifically charged in the criminal indictment but may be relevant to the jury’s consideration of the alleged crimes. These details, known as 404(b) evidence, are commonly introduced in criminal matters to aid the jury’s ability to consider a defendant’s intent or motive based on uncharged “bad acts.” In this case, Smith says the evidence will help jurors assess Trump’s intent during the frenzied weeks before the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, as he sought to subvert the election.
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Supporters of Donald Trump storm the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump faces several lawsuits over his role in the attack. | Jose Luis Magana/AP
Legal
The long-awaited D.C. Circuit ruling in a trio of civil lawsuits could influence Trump’s criminal cases as well.
By KYLE CHENEY and JOSH GERSTEIN
A federal appeals court mulling Donald Trump’s legal liability for Jan. 6 violence is approaching a conspicuous anniversary of inaction.
Nearly a year ago, the court considered three lawsuits brought by Capitol Police officers and members of Congress accusing Trump and his allies of inciting the attack that threatened their lives and the government they were sworn to protect.
But their efforts to hold Trump accountable have languished. The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals typically decides cases within four months of oral arguments, but the trio of Trump lawsuits has been sitting on the court’s docket with no ruling since they were argued last December.
“I am surprised how long it’s taking. The delay does seem unusual, but I’m hopeful we’ll get a decision,” said Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), who filed one of the three lawsuits two months after the Jan. 6 attack.
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The trial judge has already ruled that former President Donald Trump should lose his business certificates for Trump Tower and other New York properties, but an appeals court has put that penalty on hold. | Seth Wenig/AP
Legal
A verdict is expected in December. Here’s how the case is going — and what comes next.
By ERICA ORDEN
NEW YORK — Two months into Donald Trump’s civil fraud trial, the case does not seem to be going well for him.
The judge has already ruled that he committed fraud, fined the former president twice for violating a gag order and declared him to be “not credible.” Trump and his lawyers, meanwhile, have repeatedly antagonized the judge, attacking him in the press and even disparaging his law clerk.
And now, as Trump’s lawyers roll out a defense that at times has looked more like a PR pitch, his New York real estate empire hangs in the balance, with a verdict expected in mid-December.
But even the most punitive verdict is unlikely to immediately devastate Trump’s businesses. The case will be subject to lengthy appeals in the New York state courts — and Trump seems to be counting on that appeals process to avoid exorbitant fines and salvage his businesses.
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Donald Trump is scheduled to stand trial next year on charges that he hoarded classified documents after he left the White House and obstructed the government’s efforts to retrieve them. | Eric Gay/AP
LEGAL
The May 2024 trial in Trump’s classified documents case appears headed for a politically precarious postponement.
By JOSH GERSTEIN
Judge Aileen Cannon seems to be in no hurry.
On paper, she has scheduled a trial to open next May in the case charging Donald Trump with hoarding national security secrets at Mar-a-Lago.
In reality, she has run the pretrial process at a leisurely pace that will make a postponement almost inevitable, according to experts on criminal prosecutions related to classified information.
Delaying Trump’s trial until after the November election would have a momentous implication: It might mean the trial never happens at all. If Trump wins the election and the case is still pending, he’s expected to order the Justice Department to shut it down.
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Peter Meijer, who was ousted after voting to impeach President Donald Trump, is launching a comeback bid for the Senate. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Q&A
In a new Q&A, former GOP Rep. Peter Meijer defends his decision to back Donald Trump if he’s the Republican nominee.
By ADAM WREN
Things have gotten complicated for Peter Meijer when it comes to his feelings about Donald Trump.
Less than a year ago, Meijer told me that he couldn’t imagine voting for Trump in 2024. At the time, the Michigan Republican was leaving Congress after a single term, having been ousted in a primary challenge after voting to impeach Trump.
But now Meijer is launching a comeback bid for the Senate, and he’s changing his tune.
In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, Meijer said he’ll now support whomever the 2024 GOP nominee is, amid little doubt it’s likely to be Trump. And he’s doing more than that for the former president. Just days before Meijer announced his intention to join the increasingly crowded Senate GOP field, he submitted a court filing arguing that Trump’s name should be allowed to appear on Michigan ballots next year amid debate over whether Trump is disqualified from the presidency because of his conduct on Jan. 6.
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The three-judge D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel raised concerns that the order created murky restrictions that stifled the former president’s right to push back against his detractors. | Bryon Houlgrave/AP
Trump Indictment
A three-judge panel consisting of all Democratic appointees suggested the gag order may have gone too far in restricting Trump’s speech.
By JOSH GERSTEIN and KYLE CHENEY
A federal appeals court panel appeared poised to significantly narrow a gag order imposed against Donald Trump by the judge presiding over his Washington, D.C. criminal trial.
The three-judge D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals panel raised concerns that the order — which bars Trump from targeting witnesses, prosecutors and courthouse staff in the criminal case related to his effort to subvert the 2020 election — created murky restrictions that stifled the former president’s right to push back against his detractors, particularly in the heat of a presidential campaign.
Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of President Barack Obama, suggested the gag order could amount to a straitjacket for Trump if his prosecution became the focus of attacks during a presidential debate.
“He has to speak ‘Miss Manners’ while everyone else is throwing targets at him?” Millett said skeptically during a two-hour oral argument at the federal courthouse in Washington. “It would be really hard in a debate, when everyone else is going at you full bore. Your attorneys would have to have scripted little things you can say.”
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Donald Trump’s lawyers on Wednesday filed a lawsuit against Justice Arthur Engoron over the gag orders. | Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Legal
Within hours of the ruling, Trump seized on the opportunity to disparage the law clerk of the judge overseeing his civil fraud trial.
By ERICA ORDEN
Updated
NEW YORK — A state appeals court judge on Thursday temporarily lifted a gag order that barred Donald Trump from speaking about the staff of the judge overseeing an ongoing $250 million civil fraud trial against the former president.
Within hours of the ruling, Trump seized on the new leeway and denigrated the trial judge’s principal law clerk on social media.
“Considering the constitutional and statutory rights at issue an interim stay is granted,” Associate Justice David Friedman of the Appellate Division, First Department wrote in a brief order. Friedman’s order also paused a gag order that barred the lawyers involved in the trial from making comments about “confidential communications” between the trial judge, Justice Arthur Engoron, and his staff.
Engoron’s initial gag order on Trump came early in the civil fraud trial after Trump posted a disparaging social media message depicting the judge’s law clerk, Allison Greenfield, who sits alongside the judge on the bench. Engoron found that Trump subsequently violated the gag order twice, issuing him two fines totaling $15,000.
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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with 34 felony counts for allegedly falsifying business records in connection with hush money payments to a porn star. | Mary Altaffer/AP
Legal
Prosecutors in Trump’s hush money case shot back against Trump’s bid to get the charges dismissed.
By ERICA ORDEN
NEW YORK — Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office accused Donald Trump of trying to use his presidential campaign to shield himself from prosecution, saying in a new court filing that his effort to dismiss his criminal case over hush money payments is “essentially an attempt to evade criminal responsibility” merely because he is “politically powerful.”
“Defendant repeatedly suggests that because he is a current presidential candidate, the ordinary rules for criminal law and procedure should be applied differently here,” prosecutors from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office wrote in the 99-page document. “Courts have repeatedly rejected defendant’s demands for special treatment and instead have adhered to the core principle that the rule of law applies equally to the powerful as to the powerless.”
Prosecutors filed the court papers in response to Trump’s October motion to dismiss the criminal case, which his lawyers wrote “has prejudiced President Trump and the public by interfering with his presidential campaign.” The former president’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles, also denounced the prosecution as “delayed,” and criticized the timing of the charges, saying they stemmed “from a grand jury investigation that commenced approximately ten weeks after President Trump announced his candidacy.”
In the New York case, Trump is charged with 34 felony counts concerning his alleged falsification of business records connected to hush money payments made to silence affair allegations from porn star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. According to the indictment, Trump directed that reimbursements made to former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen for money he paid Daniels be falsely recorded as legal expenses in the Trump Organization ledgers.
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Alluding to Trump’s run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis said the election cycle “does not go into the calculus” when it comes to her office’s work. | John Bazemore/AP
Legal
Alluding to Trump’s run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, Willis said the election cycle “does not go into the calculus” when it comes to her office’s work.
By GISELLE RUHIYYIH EWING
Updated
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis on Tuesday called a video leak of witness proffers in the election subversion case against former President Donald Trump “disappointing” but not “surprising” — adding that prosecutors have since filed an emergency request for a protective seal.
Willis also said that she believes the trial in the sprawling racketeering case against Trump and 18 codefendants could potentially continue until early 2025, in an interview at a Washington Post global women’s summit.
“I believe in that case there will be a trial,” Willis said. “I believe the trial will take many months. And I don’t expect that we will conclude until the winter or the very early part of 2025.”
Alluding to Trump’s run for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024, Willis said the election cycle “does not go into the calculus” when it comes to her office’s work.
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The judges agreed to temporarily suspend Donald Trump’s gag order — and set an expedited timeline to consider the matter — earlier this month. | Frank Franklin II/AP
Legal
The special counsel’s office argued that Trump has exploited two temporary suspensions of the gag order to assail prosecutors and witnesses.
By KYLE CHENEY
Former President Donald Trump’s renewed attacks on the family of special counsel Jack Smith and his repeated invective against likely witnesses in his Washington, D.C. criminal case warrant the urgent restoration of a gag order against him, prosecutors argued Tuesday.
Smith’s team urged a federal appeals court in Washington to reinstate the gag order — which a three-judge panel suspended earlier this month — amid Trump’s appeal of the restrictions imposed by U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan.
The prosecutors argued that Trump has exploited two temporary suspensions of the gag order to mount some of his most inflammatory attacks on prosecutors and witnesses.
“The defendant here has taken advantage of administrative stays to engage in targeting of witnesses, as well as prosecutors and their families,” Smith’s team wrote in the 67-page filing.
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