Day by day, your right to speak freely is being robbed by the Biden administration. This time, Team Biden wants to gag defendants from criticizing government prosecutors. That’s how courts are run in countries like Pakistan, Russia and North Korea.
Anyone can fall into the government’s crosshairs. Imagine being prosecuted and being unable to speak out, proclaim your innocence and show why the case against you is unfair.
On Aug. 4, special prosecutor Jack Smith asked the court for an order to gag former President Donald Trump from discussing the evidence the government plans to use against him or even criticizing the government’s lawyers. Prosecutors are required to show the defendant all evidence that will be presented in the trial, but Smith is refusing to do so until Trump is gagged.
The judge, Tanya Chutkan, gave Trump’s lawyers only until Aug. 7 at 5 p.m. to respond to this request, asking them to “redline” any objections to the order. That’s alarming. The entire request is contrary to a defendant’s rights to free speech and a public, impartial trial. Unfortunately, Trump’s legal team quibbled around the edges, rather than attacking the major constitutional issue.
No one questions that Trump is a loudmouth. On Aug. 5 at a GOP dinner in South Carolina, the former president told the crowd that Smith is “deranged” and a “sick man.”
Trump’s entitled to his opinion. After all, Smith’s calling him a criminal. If the government were trying to lock you up for the rest of your life, you’d have a lot to say, too. No matter what you think of Trump, you should be alarmed by what Smith is trying to do.
Trying to muzzle any defendant goes contrary to what the Bill of Rights and two centuries of American law stand for: putting the rights of the defendant ahead of any other considerations.
In 1986, the Supreme Court ruled in Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court of California that the Constitution guarantees not only that trials are public but also that pretrial proceedings are open to the public, except in the rare circumstance that nondisclosure is needed to protect the defendant.
One of those rare circumstances is the upcoming trial of accused killer Bryan Kohberger. The court has limited what attorneys and the families of the victims can say to the press to increase the likelihood that an impartial jury can be selected.
That gag order is all about protecting the defendant. Smith is trying to do the opposite: gag the defendant to protect the government’s case – and the government’s pretrial public relations campaign.
That’s an outrage against voters. Trump is running for president, and if the trial doesn’t take place before the election and Trump is muzzled, the public gets only one side of the story: the prosecution’s version.
Smith is already demagoguing, telling the public he’s holding Trump accountable for the rioting at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, when in fact the indictment has nothing to do with the violence at the Capitol that day.
Whether in court or in the court of public opinion, both sides have to be heard to get at the truth. That’s the American way.
It’s especially vital with a prosecutor as sneaky and unprincipled as Smith. Again and again, Smith has targeted politicians, stretching and twisting the meaning of the law to bring charges against them, and then failing to make the charges stick.
He indicted former presidential aspirant John Edwards in 2011 for taking illegal campaign contributions, but a jury didn’t buy it.
Smith prosecuted Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) on public corruption charges, but that case ended in 2017 in a mistrial, too.
The overzealous prosecutor also went after former Virginia Gov. Robert McDonnell. Smith won a conviction, but in 2016, it was overturned by a unanimous Supreme Court, which chastised Smith for the “Government’s boundless interpretation of the federal bribery statute.” The justices warned the nation about “the uncontrolled power of criminal prosecutors.”
Amen.
Attorney General Merrick Garland should have considered Smith’s shameful record before appointing him special prosecutor to investigate possible wrongdoing by Trump. But then again, Garland likely wanted a hitman.
Tell Judge Chutkan to deny Smith’s un-American gag order. The defendant and the public deserve a fair trial. That’s what the Constitution guarantees.
Betsy McCaughey is a former lieutenant governor of New York and chairman of the Committee to Reduce Infection Deaths. Follow her on Twitter @Betsy_McCaughey.
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With each passing day, we become more and more just like any other 3rd world banana republic where the dictator in power sets the rules based on his daily whims. Where if you don’t conform to how the administration in power thinks you should behave, you can find yourself a target of lawfare (using the corrupted legal system to arrest, prosecute and bankrupt or jail your political enemies). Your real crime? NOT complying fast enough or even at all to what the government wants you to do or say. Yes, just like in China, Russia, Iran, North Korea and increasingly also in places like Brazil, Columbia, and the rest of South America, as well as in a number of western European “social democracies”.
Rights? Freedoms? You have NO rights or freedoms other than those the government may or may not deem to grant you at any particular time of day. Where you have to learn to shut-up and bow down for fear of potentially being identified as a threat to the regime in power. That is rapidly where we are headed unless the American people decide real soon that enough is enough. Sadly, I don’t see that happening any time soon. So today they go after Trump. Tomorrow it may be you, me or one of your neighbors. When the justice system becomes corrupted to the extent it has, everyone is a potential target for prosecution on something the regime can gin up.
WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED? . . . It’s what ALL Communist countries do! And the stupid people who “elected” these Commies won’t even realize how it happened! . . . STUPID IS, STUPID DOES!
Way too many Republican politicians have still not figured out that we are galloping headlong into full blown dictatorship with only the weakest façade of freedom! And when the facade is gone so too is any hope of getting it back without full blown civil war . . . and as Biden pointed out not too long ago, he’s got the nuclear weapons and the People don’t!
“Those who say the blood of Patriots, you know, and all the stuff about how we’re gonna have to move against the government . . . If you think you need to have weapons to take on the government, you need F-15s and maybe some nuclear weapons.”
–Joe Biden
townhall.com/tipsheet/katiepavlich/2021/06/23/in-gun-control-speech-biden-reminds-gun-owners-the-government-has-nuclear-weapons-n2591481
Excellent article.
The following is the TRUE ‘Privacy Rights’ you have besides the 1974 Privacy Act and U.S. Constitution..
This is straight from the National Association of Attorney’s General website,
It reads: THERE IS NO RIGHT TO SURVEILLANCE, BUT PRIVACY IS A HUMAN RIGHT. ARTICLE 12 OF THE UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, ADOPTED by the U.N. General Assembly in 1948 and RATIFIED BY THE UNITED STATES.
STATES: “NO ONE SHALL BE SUBJECTED TO ARBITRARY INTERFERENCE WITH HIS PRIVACY, FAMILY, HOME OR CORRESPONDENCE, NOR ATTACKS UPON HIS HONOUR AND REPUTATION. EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO THE PROTECTION OF THE LAW AGAINST SUCH INTERFERENCE OR ATTACKS.”
ENTITIES THAT WANT TO SPY ON YOU, READ YOUR COMMUNICATIONS, FILM YOUR COMINGS AND GOINGS, TRACK YOUR MOVEMENTS, AND COMPILE DOSSIERS ON YOU ARE DEFYING ACCEPTED NORMS.
THOSE ENTITIES ARE THE ONES THAT SHOULD BE JUSTIFYING THEIR ANTISOCIAL BEHAVIOR, NOT THE INDIVIDUAL SEEKING TO PROTECT THEIR PRIVACY RIGHTS.
Dictator Beijing biden and the DOJ VIOLATED President Trumps rights and plans on continuing VIOLATING OUR RIGHTS.
96% OF AMERICANS WANT MORE TO BE DONE TO PROTECT THEIR PRIVACY.
Remember, Dictator Beijing biden and SWAMP QUEEN pelosi
WANT MORE POWER TO SPY ON AMERICANS.
The IRS has been doing this for years.
Department of justice became The ministry of state security
No, but you have a pattern of idiocy!
Ole Lee Harvey…………….sir, you came sixty years too soon.
Speaking of justice what happened to the cocaine story?
Well of course only one side in a dictatorship can have free speech. That kind of goes with the territory. The other side is usually either jailed on trumped up charges (no pun intended) or just eliminated altogether.
Sounds like exactly what they did to January 6th people!!! I don’t understand our Republicans–maybe they are all RINOS.
To call the Biden/Obama Administration’s so called Department of Justice fair and equitable is an oxymoron. They are nothing more than political hacks misusing our legal system to obtain an end result and to hell with the Constitution and our Rights. This is legalized crime and should be called treason & sedition. Anyone on the left defending these indefensible acts should also be held accountable.
When are the democRATs just come out and admit that they are pushing communism,that way they and the totally fake elite will be in control of everything that we real AMERICANS hold dear.Republicans and real conservatives need to step up and wake up,before its too late,it may be already.
COWARD
Troll, dumb-ass or both?
the entire biden extended family needs to be in prison.
This has nothing to do with Trump directly. It is getting rid of the first amendment is their objective and Trump is being indirectly made a victim of that plan. They want to rewrite the constitution to take all citizens rights away and on how to govern America. Trump would have been assassinated a long time ago by the dems, but his usefulness is still needed to put the blame of their failures on him.
The reason Trump is taking it in stride, his soul is clean. He has nothing to hide. And silencing him will do more damage to the prosecutor than Trump. Weak prosecutors weak charges and weak results. Karma will win out
You’re such an ASS.
The local justice system is doing the same thing to me. They have wrongfully accused me of intimidating a witness. They are violating my first amendmant rights as well as other constitutional rights violations.
But they have charged me with a second degree felony of intimidating a witness. But there were never any threats made. The most they could legally charge us for would be harrassing a witness. By I did not harrass him. And he told us he was not really a witness.
“Asking” is not “Action” according to one of Trump’s lawyers today!
They also took away my right to own firearms because of this felony charge.
How do we tell Judge Chutkan to not honor the immoral/illegal gag order? Do we locate her office
Yes Sir , that’s what the marxist democrat party believes!
THROW THEM OUT
No gag order. American Citizens need to see exactly what the anti freedom marxist democrat party and their henchman are up too.
I day EXPOSE everything these out of control traitors do and try,just maybe the 46% of people who blindly support their garbage will open their eyes!!!
It’s still America where you are INNOCENT until PROVEN otherwise!
The marxist regime in Washington thinks that only pertains to them!
You forgot the biggest Loudmouths, Pelosi and Hillary. Also liars and haters of Maga. They don’t understand us.
“Biden’s DOJ Attacks The Rights Of Defendants”Of course it does, that is the way ALL communist, totalitarian regimes operate! Always have, always will.
Merrick Garland should be impeached and Jack Smith needs to be disbarred and prosecuted for his own crimes.
Help protect your rights using constitution article 5. See conventionofstates.com
I want to know where the house and senate are. They are in the position, actually paid position to fight for our rights, and Donald Trunmp’s rights. They need to have immediate response to jokers like this, and put them in their place. They should take an active role in this kind of nonsense.