Op-ed by Jason Collins | Photo: Alamy
On top of the ongoing indictments President Trump has faced, his latest challenge is a new gag order request that blatantly seeks to handicap his ability to speak freely during the elections.
Special Counsel Jack Smith filed a gag order to prevent President Trump from making statements about the cases against him and criticisms against Joe Biden.
CNBC reported Smith’s filing attempts to place “a narrow, well-defined restriction on certain prejudicial extrajudicial statements.” This broadly covers things like “Identity, testimony, or credibility of prospective witnesses,” as well as “statements about any party, witness, attorney, court personnel, or potential jurors that are disparaging and inflammatory, or intimidating.”
This gag order is nothing more than another means to silence President Trump and interfere with the upcoming elections. The gag order also accused President Trump of reportedly sharing “knowingly false accusations of misconduct” against members working on Trump’s sham case.
President Trump has been very open and vocal about the charges brought against him, as is his right to do so, and the fact that Smith is using the law to silence President Trump is cause for concern. BBC News reported that “Twitter,” now called X, had secretly sent President Trump’s direct messages to Smith. However, what was in the messages and when the platform handed them over has not been revealed.
In response to the proposed gag order, President Trump said in a speech, “Deranged Jack Smith, he’s the prosecutor, wants to take away my rights under the First Amendment, wants to take away my right to speak freely and openly.”
President Trump reminded Americans what this gag order really is: a way to silence the opposition and blatant election inference. He added, “Never forget our enemies want to stop us because we are the only ones who can stop them.”
Despite this latest move to silence President Trump, he is optimistic about his future and, considering his lead against other Republican candidates, rightfully so. RSBN reported that President Trump feels the MAGA movement is “unprecedented and, hopefully, unstoppable…”