Trump slams judge for gagging him on 'inflammatory statements'

TN Ashok
Washington, Aug 14 (IANS) Former US President Donald Trump defied Federal Judge Tanya Chutkan on her "gagging and protective" order "with the remark that is highly partisan” and "very biased and unfair".

Taking to his Truth Social to hyper ventilate his grievance against the judge for virtually gagging him, Trump said "highly partisan" and "very biased and unfair", citing as evidence a statement she made during the sentencing of a woman who participated in the mob that breached the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Trump slammed the judge presiding over his newest criminal case early Monday, testing her three day old warning that he refrain from "inflammatory" attacks against those involved in his case.

In a Truth Social post just before 1 a.m., Trump assailed US District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan saying, "She obviously wants me behind bars".

Trump alluded to Chutkan's remark during the October 2022 sentencing of Christine Priola of Ohio. Chutkan had then admonished Priola, before sentencing her to 15 months in jail, on the January 6 mob's threat to the peaceful transfer of power.

"I see the videotapes. I see the footage of the flags and the signs that people were carrying and the hats that they were wearing, and the garb," Chutkan had said as per Policio, a leading news network.  

"And the people who mobbed that Capitol were there in fealty, in loyalty to one man, not to the Constitution, of which most of the people who come before me seem woefully ignorant; not to the ideals of this county and not to the principles of democracy. It's blind loyalty to one person who, by the way, remains free to this day," Chutkan had observed in her sentencing of Priola, media reports said.

Most judges in the US have been quick to share her sentiments on the January 6 event and while some have expressed discomfort over punishing rioters -- who had been hoodwinked about the election verdict by Trump and sent to the Capitol with a warning that their country was being stolen and their livelihoods were in danger.

During the latest hearing on Friday, Chutkan, an appointee to the bench in 2014 by the then President Barack Obama, and followed by a unanimous confirmation by the senate, has reiterated politics in her courtroom in Trump's proceedings will not be tolerated.

She warned Trump, with a history of attacking judges in public, prosecutors and those arrayed against him as witnesses, that his inflammatory remarks could force her to speed up his criminal trial.

"I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case," Chutkan told Trump's lawyer John Lauro during the hearing. 

"I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings."