Judge Chutkan restrains Donald Trump in January 6 case: Ex-president prohibited from targeting witnesses, court staff, or Jack Smith and his family due to repeated accusations of derangement.

A federal judge said Monday she would impose a “partial” gag order on Donald Trump, whom she accused of making inflammatory statements that she said could endanger court staff.

The prank prevents him from attacking special prosecutor Jack Smith, who is overseeing his prosecution, as well as witnesses in the case and the judge himself, as well as family members.

Judge Tanya Chutkan outlined the outlines of her order in court after bringing up his public blasts Bill BarrGeneral Mark Milley, against himself, and against “rat-infested” Washington DC where he will be tried.

“I cannot imagine any other criminal case in which a defendant may call a prosecutor a lunatic or a criminal,” Judge Chutkan said as he announced the order she will impose.

Trump’s position as a candidate in a political campaign “does not give him carte blanche” to “defame” or implicitly “encourage violence against public officials who are simply doing their job,” the judge said.

Describing her order after a sometimes heated hearing, Chutkan singled out Trump’s posts and called special counsel Jack Smith, who filed the charges against him, a “thug” and “deranged.” As she noted during the hearing, Trump attacked Smith again last night.

Her order prohibits the release of statements that “to this day target the special counsel, his staff, including the government counsel,” she said.

Her order also bans “any statement that publicly targets my staff or other court personnel” — after she highlighted Trump’s post going after the judge’s top law clerk in his New York fraud case and her Instagram account had posted.

“It should go without saying” that the order also applies to family members, after Trump mentioned Jack Smith’s wife in a post attacking him.

She called her order “necessary and closely tailored.”

Trump can claim he’s being “unfairly prosecuted,” Judge Chutkan said, and he’s free to play ball in the District of Columbia — the location where the jury in his Jan. 6 case will be empaneled.

But she noted that his comments about D.C., which Trump has called “rat infested” in a post taken to court on Monday, would be relevant during his later appeals, and would in fact undermine his arguments that he did not get a fair shake there process can get.

She said any issues with Trump’s attacks on D.C., which he called a “filthy and crime-ridden disgrace to our nation” as he railed against his prosecution, could be handled through voir dire, the process by which attorneys screen jurors for possible bias.

“It’s not about whether I like the language Mr. Trump uses. “This is about language that endangers the administration of justice,” she said.

Not only Trump but “all parties” are prohibited from making statements “about potential witnesses or the content of their expected testimony,” she said.

That is a topic that can be charged. As Trump lawyer John Lauro noted in court, Pence is a rival to Trump in the battle for the Republican presidential nomination. Trump has repeatedly gone after Pence for refusing to count the electoral votes of states that declared Joe Biden the winner of the 2020 election.

The judge did not release detailed wording of her order, which will come later. That came after a fiery hearing from Trump’s lawyer John Lauro said a proposed gag was prima facie unconstitutional and argued it would be impossible to delimit or oversee it.

Exactly how many people it will govern is not known, but Chutkan noted that the identities of many expected witnesses can be gleaned from the indictment.

Trump attacked the proposed joke — as well as Jack Smith and Judge Chutkan — in a post on his Truth Social platform Sunday night at 11:30 p.m. The judge apparently saw it and brought it up in court.

‘Tomorrow is a big day for democracy. A leaky, crooked and deranged prosecutor, Jack Smith, who has a terrible record of failure, asks a highly partisan Obama-appointed judge, Tanya Chutkan, to recuse herself based on the terrible things that have happened she has said, to silence me through the use of a powerful GAG ORDER, making it impossible for me to criticize those silencing, namely Crooked Joe Biden, and his corrupt and weaponized DOJ and FBI,” Trump wrote.

“They want to strip me of my First Amendment rights and my ability to both campaign and defend myself. In other words: they want to cheat and interfere in the 2024 presidential elections. Something like this has never happened before in our country. It’s strictly Banana Republic-esque ‘things’. These political hacks and thugs are destroying our country. Let’s see what happens in Judge Chutkan’s courtroom on Monday. Will America survive, or not? I’m going to campaign in the Great State of Iowa, where I have a 50 point lead!!!’

After questioning opposing lawyers for two hours and raising concerns about possible security risks posed by some of Trump’s comments, the judge indicated she was ready to take action.

“I’m not confident that without some restrictions we won’t be here all the time,” she said.

At one point, the judge even presented lawyers with hypothetical messages that Trump could issue targeting rivals such as his own former attorney general, Bill Barr.

She asked if Trump could post within a proposed gag order that “Bill Barr should be executed for his many treasonous acts.”

Chutkan asked about Trump’s posts labeling Special Counsel Jack Smith as “deranged,” as well as his posts attacking her and DC – the location where his trial will begin in March.

“The government’s sole purpose in this motion is to ensure due process in this case by preventing extrajudicial statements that would prejudice the process,” the spokesperson said.

Lauro called the silence order “prior restriction of content-based political expression, which is the highest degree of constitutional protection.” He defended many of Trump’s comments even as he admitted he may not have made them, including attacks on the Department of Injustice.

“He has no right to say and do exactly what he wants,” Chutkan said during many clashes with Lauro, noting that Trump is a criminal defendant who must follow the terms of his release.

“These prosecutors decided to bring this case in the middle of a political campaign,” Lauro said, repeatedly testing the judge’s patience by asking for a postponement of the trial she had scheduled for March 4.

‘The simplest solution to all this is obvious: … postpone the matter (until) after the presidential elections. That is the solution,” he said.

Lauro pressed repeatedly on how to enforce an order that would prevent Trump from saying anything that “disparages” a potential witness or influences the jury.

“How you can enforce an order in the middle of a campaign is impossible under the circumstances,” he said.