The federal appeals court covering Washington, D.C., has rejected a request from former President Donald Trump for a redo with every judge on the appeals court after a three-judge panel largely upheld a gag order amid a criminal case from Special Counsel Jack Smith. Thus, it stays.
The gag order was originally imposed by trial Judge Tanya Chutkan, and it remains active amid a pause on most proceedings while Trump tries to convince judges elsewhere that he should be considered broadly immune from even the possibility of Smith’s case merely by virtue of prior service as president. The three-judge panel behind the earlier decision narrowed the gag order’s scope, including by allowing some public commentary by Trump against Smith himself, but the judges left intact a general framework of restrictions. Concerns were raised of Trump’s antagonistic rhetoric potentially producing problems both for witnesses and the effective handling of jury deliberations.
Trump still had the opportunity to seek intervention in the gag order dispute by the U.S. Supreme Court, though there’s no guarantee that the judges will actually take up the controversy.
The nation’s highest court is also in line for further appeals after decisions finally emerge from the same appeals court in D.C. on Trump’s claims of wide-ranging immunity. Observers have seriously doubted that judges will support Trump’s insistence he should be absolutely — or nearly absolutely — immune from possibly being charged for actions as president, but there’s still the problem of delay, forced so far by the sweeping nature of the claims made by Trump.
Despite the trial-level pause, Smith’s team kept producing court filings, leading to a push by Trump to hold the Justice Department prosecutor in contempt. Chutkan rejected this entreaty, though she did direct that further substantive filings ahead of an eventual trial first receive her permission. The judge specified, however, that she wasn’t holding prosecutors to have directly gone against key parts of her own order issued earlier outlining the pause, amid which other status quo-related measures have also remained active.
