Donald J. Trump can add another first under his belt: the first former US president to be indicted for a crime.
Charged with 34 felonies (most of which are exaggerated) by an overzealous Manhattan district attorney, Trump has sojourned to his old home in New York City to stand in court.
According to unprecedented leaks (likely from the DA’s office), Trump will not be placed in handcuffs or have his mugshot taken. Trump, a streetfighter by nature, has not taken this indictment lying down. Instead, he has doubled-down on his campaign for reelection in 2024 and increased his attacks on his political enemies—including Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan DA leading the charge against Trump.
All this has congealed into a growing concern among both Trump’s legal team and his supporters that the Manhattan judge might issue a gag order. This is usually done during court proceedings when a defendant has proven unable to muzzle themselves. With Trump, he is constantly sharing his innermost thoughts and feelings with his millions of followers on the Truth Social app that he owns.
He’s already criticized Bragg and called for him to be indicted in the wake of the scandalous leaks to the press about the details of Trump’s arraignment (in which no mugshot will be taken and Trump would not be handcuffed).
Donald Trump and a Gag Order: Could It Happen?
With such a high-profile case underway, the judge might decide to issue a gag order for multiple reasons: To protect the integrity and safety of the trial from Trump’s rage (and the ire of his followers who are massing outside the courthouse).
Interestingly, Trump’s legendary inability to silence himself during legal proceedings in which he is the star has plagued all of Trump’s lawyers, so much so that Trump’s current legal team might be hoping for such an order. After all, Trump tends to attack judges and prosecutors who are actively prosecuting him. This is certainly not an endearing trait of Trump’s as his freedom and political future hangs in the balance.
Since Donald Trump has already gone on the attack against the prosecutor and considering he’s already attacked the legitimacy of the hearing—while sharing far too many details about the case on his social media platform—the presiding judge might enact at least a partial gag order.
Should a gag order be implemented that would mean that Trump, who has already been constrained from using social media since the 1/6 riot at the end of his presidency, would have to seriously curtail his presence on social media. He’d also have to carefully check his statements at public rallies to ensure that he did not violate the order.
That the trial may not even start in earnest until after the 2024 election means that a gag order could conceivably be in place throughout the election next year. Trump is incapable of speaking in disciplined or judicious ways. He is America’s id. Therefore, the forty-fifth president would not only chafe under such legal restrictions to his freedom of speech, but he’d likely flounder as a candidate. Trump’s political brand is based on the idea that he doesn’t do polite; he says what he wants, when he wants, because it is the unvarnished truth.
Trump’s ability to reach beyond the gatekeepers in the traditional media is what helped get him elected in 2016. Since 2020, Trump has been held back from being as communicative with his followers as he’d like to be. Trump is only just now getting more out into the public. Yet, he now runs the risk of losing that connectivity once again with this gag order.
The Left knows that Donald Trump cannot keep himself quiet or regulate his innermost thoughts and feelings. What’s more, the Democrats understand that Trump’s greatest strength—his freedom of speech—is the greatest threat to them. Unable to defeat Trump fairly, the Democrats have resorted to a bevy of extreme measures aimed at silencing and containing Trump long enough to allow for the Democrats to overcome whatever advantages Trump enjoys over them.
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A gag order would be the kiss of death for Trump’s reelection campaign as it would deny Donald Trump the one thing that has propelled forward in politics: his voice. That’s how Biden thinks he can beat Trump. We’ll see if this works out as the Democrats hope it will.
A 19FortyFive Senior Editor, Brandon J. Weichert is a former Congressional staffer and geopolitical analyst who is a contributor at The Washington Times, as well as at American Greatness and the Asia Times. He is the author of Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower (Republic Book Publishers), Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life (May 16), and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy (July 23). Weichert can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
