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So Trump's Mouth is a Prosecutor's Dream. It's Still Time to Shut It Up [1]

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Date: 2023-10-15  

WaPo has a major story about how Trump the Candidate is hurting Trump the Defendant:

How candidate Trump’s claims boost legal risks for defendant Trump

As prosecutors and lawyers for Donald Trump spar over the former president’s public statements, Trump the candidate keeps saying things that could hurt Trump the defendant’s chances in court.

One recent example:

Smith has charged Trump with dozens of felonies for allegedly hoarding national security secrets after his presidency, and trying to obstruct government efforts to recover those documents. Trump has pleaded not guilty. Yet at a Wednesday night rally in Florida, Trump boasted anew about information that he suggested might be classified, and he repeated past claims that he was justified in keeping sensitive documents at his Mar-a-Lago home and private club.

This was about Netanyahu supposedly backing out of an agreement to assassinate Soleimani — an agreement that never existed (though Israel did help confirm Soleimani’s location). Since there never was an agreement, what Trump disclosed wasn’t classified info — though if there had been an agreement, it would have been highly classified, and disclosing it would have caused considerable harm both to us and our ally Israel.

But Trump’s telling of it is useful anyway:

Whether Trump’s Soleimani story is true or not, the comments could easily be used by prosecutors at trial to show Trump’s intentions and state of mind, and argue to a jury that even after his indictment, the former president shows a willful disregard for protecting national security secrets. Lawyers said such public declarations are deeply damaging to his defense, as he regularly appears to admit, on video, to particular elements of the crimes he is accused of committing.

So it bothers the Post that prosecutors are pushing for gag orders:

But if prosecutors get their wish and successfully muzzle the former president from talking about witnesses, evidence or the courts, they might also suffer, legal experts say. “I understand why the prosecutors are trying to get a gag order, but they should be a little careful what they wish for, because every time the guy opens his mouth he seems to dig himself a deeper hole,” said Jim Walden, a lawyer and former federal prosecutor in New York, who is skeptical that a gag order on Trump would even work.

I might go along with the argument that a gag order won’t work (though Judge Chutkan has dropped hints she can be creative in enforcing such an order, for example in moving the trial forward every time he violates it). But I don’t buy the first part. The Post article lists speech after speech after speech Trump has already made, and which are already recorded, to convict 10 times over; there’s no need to let him make it 15. The hole Trump is in so deep we can feel the magma (NOT Maga) heat rising from the bottom.

Anyway, a gag order just prevents him from talking about the trial, the witnesses, the judge and prosecutors. He can talk the Soleimani assassination, about not listening to his lawyers. about how he can do anything he wants — all of which prosecutors can use.

Just don’t let him talk about the case or the court.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/10/15/2199547/-So-Trump-s-Mouth-is-a-Prosecutor-s-Dream-It-s-Still-Time-to-Shut-It-Up?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=more_community&pm_medium=web

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