Many have sided with former President Donald Trump in believing the Biden administration’s DOJ has exercised political bias in its handling of conservative groups and in its prosecution of the former president.
The former president and current GOP front-runner in the 2024 presidential election is facing an unprecedented four indictments and 91 criminal charges.
However, polling shows that Trump’s support increases with each indictment.
In recent proceedings, two federal judges have issued gag orders, which Trump’s legal team claims is a stark infringement on his First Amendment rights.
Supporting the former president, 18 Republican state attorneys general announced on Wednesday the filing of “friend-of-the-court briefs” that urge the D.C. Court of Appeals District Judge Tanya Chutkan to reverse her ruling.
Trending Politics reported the action “hearkens back to when 25 states filed amicus briefs in Texas v. Georgia, Wisconsin, Michigan, & Pennsylvania seeking Supreme Court intervention in the 2020 Electoral College certification.”
According to the Daily Caller, the new legal action was initiated by Iowa and West Virginia’s Brenna Bird and Patrick Morrisey. Their amicus brief argued that Chutkan significantly “overstepped” her authority.
As noted, their brief has now been joined by 16 other state attorneys general. The list includes Alabama, Alaska, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and Utah.
An excerpt from the Bird-Morrisey brief read:
The district court here overstepped its role in issuing an overly broad order denying Defendant, President Donald J. Trump, from making public statements about “individuals involved in the judicial process.
The court imposed “limited restrictions on extrajudicial statements” that hinder and inhibit the ongoing presidential campaign, particularly as applied to limiting President Trump’s ability to make statements about witnesses who are themselves part of that campaign.
That overbroad Order — an order that a major United States presidential candidate mute himself on a major campaign issue — cannot survive any level of scrutiny.
Beyond its overbreadth, the Order is impermissibly vague. By failing to articulate what it means to “target” the individuals the Order identifies, the Court’s prior restraint will unlawfully chill President Trump’s speech.
As administrators of free and fair elections, we have an interest in ensuring no illegal prior restraint is entered against any major political candidate. Indeed, our citizens have an interest in hearing from major political candidates in that election. The Order threatens the States’ interests by infringing on President Trump’s free speech rights.
Notably, in addition to his gag order, New York Supreme Court Judge Arthur Engoron threatened Trump with incarceration prior to his ruling.
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