It took less than 24 hours after Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Ivanka Trump to testify in the financial fraud trial swamping the Trump Organization in a Manhattan courtroom for Donald Trump to blow his top and lash out at the jurist.On Friday, Engoron ruled that the president's oldest daughter must o...
You know that a gag order is a specific restriction on free speech that courts can issue, right? That's literally what they are for.
The gag order doesn't apply to Judge Engoron. Both he and Judge Chutkan in the DC case specifically exempted themselves from being covered by their respective gag orders. The logic is that the 1st Amendment protects criticism of federal judges. He can't, however, threaten federal judges, so it'll be interesting to see how far he pushes it. Unfortunately, in the past he's shown a surprising amount of restraint in skating just up to the line, but not actually crossing it.
They don't allow a judge to declare whatever they want. Trump is appealing one of his gag orders and will likely be successful in part.
Judges can't simply do whatever they want.
Gag orders on indicted felons who can't shut up are extremely common. He isn't likely to prevail on that.
They can't stop him from saying just anything, gag orders need to be narrow and serve a justice purpose.
That's why part of the gag is likely to be changed as its overly broad.
They haven't prevented him from saying anything. They prevent him from attacking witnesses and court employees which is well within scope of a gag order.
Which isn't what this thread was talking about at the start…