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A federal appeals court has upheld key parts of a gag order that blocks Donald Trump from attacking witnesses in his election conspiracy case.
The gag order put in place by US District Judge Tanya Chutkan prohibited the former president from launching a “pretrial smear campaign” as he seeks the 2024 Republican nomination for president, the judge wrote in October.
Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that the order unconstitutionally interferes with his “core political speech” as he defends himself from several lawsuits and four criminal prosecutions, including two cases surrounding his alleged attempts to unlawfully overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
Friday’s ruling from the US Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington DC prohibits Mr Trump and all parties and their attorneys from “making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses”.
It also blocks parties from making public statements about attorneys, members of the court staff and family members “if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staff’s work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is highly likely to result.”
The appeals court’s ruling, notably, allows Mr Trump to continue to bash US Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith, a frequent target of the former president’s attacks.
This is a developing story
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