(Washington Examiner)The American Civil Liberties Union, one of the most vocal critics of Donald Trump during his four years in the Oval Office, is now s iding with the former president’s position that a gag order against him is “unconstitutionally overbroad.”
The ACLU on Wednesday argued that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan infringed on Trump’s First Amendment rights and the public’s right to listen to him when she issued the order earlier this month. Chutkan is presiding over the criminal case special counsel Jack Smith is pushing against Trump over alleged attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
“Former President, and now Defendant, Donald Trump has said many things,” the ACLU and its Washington, D.C., affiliate wrote in an amicus brief at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. “Much that he has said has been patently false and has caused great harm to countless individuals, as well as to the Republic itself. Some of his words and actions have led him to this criminal indictment, which alleges grave wrongdoing in contempt of the peaceful transition of power.”
“But Trump retains a First Amendment right to speak, and the rest of us retain a right to hear what he has to say,” the brief added.
Chutkan last week granted Smith’s motion to impose a gag order on Trump after he made several inflammatory remarks on social media lambasting the nation’s capital and other potential witnesses in his case.
The judge temporarily paused her gag order after Trump appealed it. In effect, it bars Trump, his lawyers, and his campaign from speech that would “target” potential witnesses, prosecutors in the case, or court staff.
U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan is presiding over former President Donald Trump’s 2020 election subversion trial.
AP
Lawyers for the ACLU argued the gag order is overly vague and violates Trump’s due process rights, noting he “cannot possibly know” what he is allowed to say.
“The entire order hinges on the meaning of the word ‘target,’” ACLU lawyers wrote. “But that meaning is ambiguous, and fails to provide the fair warning that the Constitution demands, especially when, as here, it concerns a prior restraint on speech.”
The gag order in the Washington, D.C., court is one of two imposed against Trump in his various legal cases.
At his civil fraud trial in New York, Trump was placed under a narrow gag order earlier this month after targeting the judge’s principal clerk. Presiding Judge Arthur Engoron has since found Trump violated the order on two separate occasions and has imposed fines.
The ACLU filing was made the same day Trump took the stand in his New York case to answer Engoron’s allegations of violating the order.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges in the federal election case, one of four criminal cases he faces as he runs for president as the front-runner of the Republican nomination in 2024.
