Indicted former president Donald Trump has been warned about his habit of attacking witnesses, court employees, and others involved in his legal troubles.
Trump has an annoying tendency to launch verbal attacks on anyone he sees as a threat to his ambitions — and now that he’s facing felonies in four different courts, removal processes in three states, and additional civil actions in multiple venues — it’s becoming a serious problem for the legal system.
In Colorado, a judge overseeing a suit brought to remove him from the ballot isn’t having any of it.
While special prosecutor Jack Smith pleads for a similar order in the documents case filed in Florida, and Trump signed conditions of release in Georgia that include not contacting witnesses, Denver District Court Judge Sarah B. Wallace wasted no time entering an order in the ballot disqualification suit.
The case goes to trial on October 30th, and in the meantime, she’s not allowing Trump or any of his associates and surrogates to intimidate witnesses or influence jurors.
Plaintiffs presented the judge with a case for a gag order, noting his social media post that asserted, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you,” as well as recent comments by an intervenor in the case, Colorado GOP Chair Dave Williams, who has already called the plaintiffs treasonous for bringing the case. Colorado Newsline reports:
“Denver District Court Judge Sarah B. Wallace during a Friday hearing said she had concerns for the ‘safety for the parties, for the lawyers and frankly for myself and my staff, based on what we’ve seen in other cases.’”
The case in question is to prevent Trump’s name from being on the Colorado ballots in 2024, based on the assertion that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Insurrection Clause disqualifies him, as it forbids anyone who has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution — and then supported an attack against it — to hold office.
Neither Trump, his attorneys, nor anyone else named in the case is allowed to make statements that any witness or other party would reasonably see as threatening or endangering them, nor any that would be likely to prejudice a potential juror.
They also cannot induce anyone else to make such statements on their behalf, so even social media posts by Trump family members or allies could potentially fall under scrutiny.
Just a week ago, Trump had a social media fit over the request for a similar order in his classified documents case, screeching that this would prevent him from calling the prosecutor “deranged” and decrying the potential stifling of his speech.
However, his attorneys may have convinced him to take the Colorado gag order seriously — he has not offered any public comment on it so far.
