Thanksgiving came early this year for Trumpty Dumpty. Oh yes, he’s having a jubilant day. He’s kicking up his heels. Word came down a short while ago from the appellate court that Trump’s gag order in New York has been lifted and so he gets to run his mouth. He immediately took to Truth Social (which then reposted to Twitter/X) and danced all around.
And did he repost Breitbart or Mark Levin’s version of the story? Oh, hell no. He reposted the top of the line story, the Associated Press. Don’t think that didn’t tickle his orange hue into a shade of pink. Now he’s grapefruit colored. And he’s not the only one dancing. Alina Habba is thrilled as well. “I’m free,” Trump’s lawyer Alina Habba joked to reporters following Thursday’s order. “We’ve seen this now time and time again where judges overreach and take a Constitutionally-protected right to free speech — and political speech is even more protected — and gag him and his lawyers,” Habba continued.
So Trump and his coterie are taking this as a big win. They’re quite pleased. And that makes sense. To them, this is all about publicity and this is a short term win that looks good. Where things go from here may not look so good. Bottom line, now a full panel of judges will weigh Trump’s appeal of what his lawyer, Christopher Kise, on Thursday argued was “prior restraint on political speech by a front-running presidential candidate.” Good. And what might that look like? I think they’re going to hang themselves, all of them, Trump, his lawyers, the whole clan. At least that’s the direction things are going. NBC News:
Trump attorney Jesus Suarez declined comment on the gag order after court Thursday. Another Trump lawyer, Alina Habba, told The Associated Press at the Appellate Division courthouse that she would not be advising Trump to keep quiet about the clerk.
“I don’t see a reason for restrictions because Ms. James is continuing to disparage my client,” she said, referring to New York Attorney General Letitia James, who brought the fraud case against Trump and his company. “Both sides need to be able to speak.”
Trump was also hit with a gag order in the federal criminal election interference case against him, which barred him from making statements about potential witnesses or disparaging comments about the prosecutors, court staff or support personnel. U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who’s presiding over that case, briefly lifted the order last month pending Trump’s appeal on constitutional grounds, but eventually put it back in place.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for Washington, D.C., will hear arguments Monday on Trump’s appeal in the federal case.
Now here’s an important point, mark this one well: Witness tampering is a chargeable crime, gag orders, free speech considerations, all that to the contrary. And Trump may just continue to do it, bigly, now that he thinks he’s got free rein from the legal system to run amok. And that is clearly how he’s interpreting today’s legal decision.
Trump is going to keep bloviating and causing no end of grief. That’s who he is. The question now, and always, is: will somebody get hurt? We don’t know. We do know that Judge Engoron’s court clerk now has a target on her back, much as the two election workers in Georgia had targets slapped on theirs, by boozy blowhard Rudy Giuliani. And that eventually devolved to their favor. So perhaps this will as well.
New case law is going on the books all the time. This case may be some landmark ruling or it may go up the ladder to a landmark ruling. As usual, Trump takes the cultural pot to the tipping point. The bigger they are the harder they fall. It took a while for George Santos to get cornered, but it happened. Trump’s time is coming and it’s not going to be that long from now.
Stay tuned.
These judges are literally screwing with people’s LIVES. Even if Trump and his lawyers aren’t explicitly using the words “One of you Trump supporters KILL this person” that’s what we all know they are trying to incite. Like judges all across this country in domestic violence cases have so often done they give WAY too much benefit of the doubt to an abuser. It’s cost countless women their lives because some judge sits there safe and secure and cites that threats, even when there’s documented history of beatings and overt specific threats in the past says “Well, at this point in time no legal line has been crossed” and the abuser takes it as license to go ahead and escalate. With tragic results and the judges sit back and if they say anything it’s bullshit platitudes about the law and the rights of the abuser. The victims, the targets of the abusers? Their rights are secondary!
This is increasingly dangerous. Trump might not be able to summon a mass of people like he did on J6 but for these people that are being specifically targeted it only takes ONE so-called “lone wolf” crazy ass MAGA. And unlike say Mike Pence or Speaker Pelosi on J6 these regular folks don’t have a highly trained set of agents to protect them.
The ONLY thing that will get Trump’s attention enough to if not shut him up get him (and his fooking lawyers now too) to tone it down is to get slapped with a Contempt citation and spend a couple of days & nights locked up. No phones/social media. It won’t happen of course but it goddam well should.
How lone is a long wolf?
Fixed it. Thanks
I saw this story on AOL’s newsfeed and left a comment that, if Judge Friedman had to deal with Trump in his court, and Trump started making the same kind of remarks about Friedman’s clerks and staff, I’ll guarantee you that, free speech or no, Friedman would slap his own gag order on Trump.
There are times that it’s fine to deal with the law in a “theoretical” manner but when the law has the potential to cause trouble for real people, then the law needs to take a backseat to reality. And I’d love to see why Friedman thinks that abusive, disparaging and, frankly, slanderous language should be protected when the Supreme Court has never stood for that, especially when it comes to “private citizens” (Judge Engoron may be a public figure but his clerks and staff are still essentially “private” citizens).
Funny how, in a case HE’S ALREADY LOST, he feels vindicated. I’m sure his ‘invincibility’ will take a major hit from the very judge he’s working hard to piss off. As was stated in the movie Untouchables, Kevin Cosner reminded Al Capone that you don’t celebrate UNTIL THE FIGHT IS OVER. Of course that would take some brains to figure out…something the scarecrow lacks. Better start burying bags of cash before the judgement comes down! I hear there’s still room at his golf courses. Oh, and don’t tell Jr. The price of coke doesn’t go down, and his daddy’s cash will fly straight up his nose.
Well, the headline uses the term “braying”. Pretty accurate as he is an ass. As much as the ass has pissed off the judge who will be deciding his punishment/fines and now this I guess he wants to lose it all. Wonder what he’ll do when he has to live like the bottom 95%? What would be best will be him living his remaining years behind bars but I’ll take him having to worry about how to pay for Melania’s mani/pedis. It’s not true justice but it ain’t bad.
I was going to say that Picture for the article looked like a braying jackass! But you beat me to it Spike!
If Melodorous had any brain cells still firing after being married to tRump for two decades, she’s actively seeking another Sugar Daddy. I think one thing that would do some damage is if she started “dating” one of tRump’s big donors who still has money because he stopped giving YUGE amounts of cash to Dimwit Donny.