Gag order for Trump.

in dc •  last year 

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https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/16/judge-imposes-gag-order-on-donald-trump-in-d-c-trial-00121743

Trump is bad and Trump should be treated no better than any other defendant, but gag orders as a general proposition are also bad and under-scrutinized. In principle, the government charging you with a crime shouldn't curtail your 1A rights. Even if you really should shut up for your own good.

Witness intimidation, suborning perjury, threatening jurors, etc. are already standalone crimes for everybody. At most, maybe the court should be allowed to apply the usual gag order enforcement mechanisms if you cross those lines. But you shouldn't lose your general right to be an idiot.

Trump shouldn't get any special exceptions and this isn't the case to make new law on this ancillary issue. But if I, random citizen, have the 1A right to say Jack Smith is a shape-shifting lizard from outer space conspiring with Satan, then the guy he's prosecuting should be allowed to say it.

There's something deeply uncomfortable with the idea that the government, at the very time it is bringing the absolute peak of its coercive power to bear against you, should be allowed to silence your criticism of the government officials making that decision.

So while I'm very much cheering for this prosecution, by far the most important of the cases he's facing, I'm not thrilled for this gag order or eager for Trump to be punished for violating it.

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