Welcome to this week’s edition of the Deadline: Legal Newsletter, a roundup of top legal stories, including the latest developments from the Supreme Court, Donald Trump’s legal cases and more. Click here to have the newsletter delivered straight to your inbox every Friday this Supreme Court term.
Donald Trump is re-gagged (again). A federal appeals court in Washington on Friday upheld a narrowed version of U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan’s gag order in the former president’s federal election interference case. Among the appeals court’s modifications to Chutkan’s initial order is that Trump can now make statements about special counsel Jack Smith. A state appeals court reinstated Trump’s gag order in his New York civil fraud trial roughly a week ago.
Smith put Trump on notice this week — literally. The Justice Department filed a notice in the federal election case laying out evidence it wants to introduce against Trump at the trial that’s set for March. Prosecutors are casting a wide net, stretching all the way back to a 2012 Trump tweet falsely alleging fraud in that year’s election, through the former president’s ongoing support of Jan. 6 defendants. Chutkan will decide how much of this evidence jurors in Washington will get to see.
But will that March trial date hold? Trump is appealing Chutkan’s ruling against him on presidential immunity and double jeopardy, and he’s trying to pause all proceedings in the meantime, a move that MSNBC legal analyst Andrew Weissmann said should fail. While the D.C. Circuit won’t likely disagree with Chutkan’s rejection of Trump’s claims, the question is whether the pretrial appeal will upset the March date. As ever, the Supreme Court will likely have the last word.
The justices are also poised to have the last word on Trump’s ballot eligibility under the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause. The Colorado Supreme Court pondered the matter at a hearing Wednesday, but it’s unclear how the…
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