BREAKING: Trump Loses Gag Order Fight in Jack Smith DC Case

A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied Trump’s request to reconsider its decision to uphold Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order enforcing Jack Smith’s gag order against the former president.

Last month the DC Circuit Court of Appeals largely upheld but narrowed Judge Tanya Chutkan’s gag order against Trump in Jack Smith’s bogus election interference case.

“We agree with the district court that some aspects of Mr. Trump’s public statements pose a significant and imminent threat to the fair and orderly adjudication of the ongoing criminal proceeding, warranting a speech-constraining protective order,” the DC appeals court ruled last month, according to NBC News. “The district court’s order, however, sweeps in more protected speech than is necessary. For that reason, we affirm the district court’s order in part and vacate it in part.”

Trump’s lawyers have been fighting Chutkan’s gag order since she first imposed it in November.

The gag order prevented Trump from criticizing Jack Smith or any of his prosecutors or staffers, any of the Court’s staff or supporting personnel or any ‘witnesses.’

In early December a federal appeals court upheld most of the gag order except for the part where Trump isn’t allowed to criticize Jack Smith. Trump is allowed to criticize the special counsel.

The court said Trump “does not have an unlimited right to speak.”

President Trump’s lawyers in mid-December requested an “en banc” hearing which would be a review from the Court’s entire slate of 11 judges – or for the three-judge panel to rehear arguments against Chutkan’s gag order.

On Tuesday, the three-judge panel that originally ruled against Trump (Judge Patricia Millett, Obama appointee, Judge Cornelia Pillard, Obama appointee, and Judge Bradley Garcia, Biden appointee) denied Trump’s request to reconsider its gag order decision.

The Messenger reported:

A federal appeals court on Tuesday denied Donald Trump’s request for it to reconsider its decision mostly upholding the partial gag order against the former president in the Washington, D.C. election subversion case.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals denied the former president’s request in a one-page order issued Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the gag order in a 68-page opinion in December, making only slight modifications to its scope.

On Dec. 18, Trump’s legal team filed a petition for “en banc” consideration, seeking either a review by the full D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals or a rehearing before the three-judge panel that issued this month’s decision.

Petitions for en banc consideration are often a final step before federal appellants seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court. A Trump spokesman on Tuesday did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

President Trump will likely seek a review by the US Supreme Court.