Trump May Have Violated Gag Order Immediately Following Judge's Ruling

Shortly after Judge Tanya Chutkan placed a limited gag order on Donald Trump on Monday, the former President took to social media to rail against the judge and the so-called "witch hunt" before announcing that he'll appeal the ruling. Trump, and later his campaign, claimed that the Biden administration was attempting to silence them, and these statements together could actually be a violation of the overall order. Farron Cousins explains what happened.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

As I'm sure everybody is aware by now, on Monday, judge Tanya Sukin issued a limited gag order against Donald Trump preventing him from talking about Jack Smith, the Special Prosecutor, or Jack Smith's family. He cannot talk about any of the court personnel, and of course, he cannot attack any of the potential witnesses in the case. And then moments, literally moments after this order came down, Donald Trump got on truth social and really pushed the limits of that gag order to the point where reporters are suggesting that he may have already violated it, like the ink wasn't even dry on the order before Donald Trump got on true social and said some things that depending on your interpretation, could easily be viewed as violations of the gag order. What Donald Trump said, we'll appeal the gag order ruling witch hunt, and by saying witch hunt, that also does kind of attack the prosecutor.

Again, it depends on your interpretation, but Jack Smith is the guy that brought the indictment. He was the, you know, special prosecutor doing the investigation. So if you're calling it a witch hunt, you're calling into question his authority, his morals, and his motivation. So just saying you could view that as an easy violation of the gag order. He then went on on another one. A terrible thing happened to democracy today, gag order. I just love the way that was phrased. And then of course, his campaign sent out their official statement that again, might be seen as a violation of the gag order when they said, quote, today's decision is an absolute abomination and another partisan knife stuck in the heart of our democracy by crooked Joe Biden, who was granted the right to muzzle his political opponent, the leading candidate for the presidency in 2024, and the most popular political leader in America, president Donald J. Trump.

Now by attacking President Biden there, you could view that as an attack on the Department of Justice, which is an attack on Jack Smith. So again, kind of a gray area, but I think that statement, as disgusting as it is and as untrue as it is, that statement's probably okay, and it didn't stop there either, folks, because then Donald Trump sent out a fundraising email that said this, the Biden administration can try and gag me, but they can never gag the American people. No, because you're doing a good job of gagging all of us right now, Donald, let me be clear about that. Every time you speak, we just one of those numbers, right? He then at an Iowa campaign rally after

His posts on truth social, after the official statement from the campaign, after the fundraising email, he gets up on stage and he says this, today, a judge put on a gag order. I'll be the only politician in history that runs with a gag order where I'm not allowed to criticize people. Can you imagine this? Do you believe this? I'm not allowed to criticize people, so we'll see. We'll appeal it and we'll see, but it's so unconstitutional. Again, that kind of seems like it's an attack on the judge, right? And you're not allowed to attack any court personnel. The judge is a court personnel, so I assume she is also included in people you can't attack by alleging that her decision was in fact unconstitutional. You were calling into question her reasoning and her rationale, possibly even her motivations, which could again taint a potential jury pool. And this all happened, it started moments after the gag order, and it happened for hours after the gag order on the first day. I think it's pretty obvious at this point that eventually Donald Trump is going to violate that gag order. It's just a matter of when. Maybe it'll be today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, but it will happen. Clearly, he cannot shut himself up, and eventually it's going to get him in very serious trouble.