ACLU says Trump gag order in DC election interference case violates First Amendment

The American Civil Liberties Union argued Wednesday that the gag order slapped on former President Donald Trump in his federal election interference case violates the U.S. Constitution.

The ACLU, a frequent and vocal critic of Trump that applauded his criminal indictment in the federal case in Washington, D.C., said that the restrictions placed on his speech run afoul of the First Amendment.

“No modern-day president did more damage to civil liberties and civil rights than President Trump,” said the group’s executive director, Anthony Romero, in a press release.

“But if we allow his free speech rights to be abridged, we know that other unpopular voices — even ones we agree with — will also be silenced,” Romero said. 

“As much as we disagreed with Donald Trump’s policies, everyone is entitled to the same First Amendment protection against gag orders that are too broad and too vague,” he said.

U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan imposed a partial gag order on Trump in mid-October, after special counsel Jack Smith’s prosecutors argued that the ex-president’s bellicose statements about the case risked prejudicing the trial.

Trump has repeatedly fulminated against the judge, the prosecutors, the jury pool and potential witnesses in the case, which accuses him of illegally conspiring to overturn his 2020 election loss to President Joe Biden. Trump has pleaded not guilty.

Chutkan’s order bars Trump and other parties in the case from making public statements about Smith, the defense counsel, members of the court or any of their staffers.

They are also prohibited from targeting “any reasonably foreseeable witness or the substance of their testimony.”

In an 18-page court filing, the ACLU argued that Chutkan’s order is too…