Trump Says He’s Willing to Go to Jail After Being Hit With Gag Order | Crossroads

Good evening and welcome to Crossroads. President Donald Trump has been hit with a gag order. This is going to restrict him from talking about the special counsel targeting him in its criminal investigations and any person tied with the prosecution, including judges and witnesses. But even more so, it will restrict Trump from talking about the content of any potential testimonies, meaning anyone they want to bring in, whatever they talk about, probably off the table. And since the case is about the allegations that Trump encouraged the January 6 protests and riots, this will also tie into whether Trump can talk about the 2020 elections and his belief that they were stolen. This also means now that Trump could be fined or even imprisoned if he talks about witness testimony related to January 6, the 2020 elections, or election fraud. And notably as well, this extends to Trump directing other people to make statements like this, which means that even his campaign staff, his advisers, and others around him, maybe even his family, are held to the same gag order if they believe that's the case. Now the gag order was requested on Trump by special counsel Jack Smith. This is because Trump has been repeatedly criticizing and calling the integrity of Smith into question. This is along with Smith's staff, the judges, and others tied in with the many legal cases that Trump is now facing. The gag order was issued today. That was by a U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, a Jamaican immigrant who was appointed by President Barack Obama. Now Chutkan argued that the gag order is meant to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings. And she wrote that Trump's public statements on people involved in the case have led to them being threatened and harassed. Now she wrote that Trump has made statements to national audiences suggesting that he believes the cases are illegitimate and that, as Chutkan claims, that particular individuals involved in it are liars or thugs or deserve death. Her words. Now she alleged that if Trump is allowed to make these statements or ones like these, it could intimidate potential witnesses or other people involved in the case and the effect of that, well, they said it could affect the outcome of the trial. While the gag order goes pretty far in terms of restricting Trump's speech on key issues around the election and legal cases he's facing, it actually doesn't even go as far as Special Counsel Jack Smith and others had wanted. Smith wanted this to restrict Trump from even criticizing President Joe Biden, who is currently the main rival to Trump for the 2024 elections. It was also suggested it could restrict Trump from criticizing former Vice President Mike Pence, who is also right now a 2024 candidate. Judge Chutkan also clarified that the order does not restrict Trump from criticizing Biden or his administration overall or the Department of Justice or Pence or the campaign platforms or policies of any of Trump's political rivals, including again Pence. She also clarified that Trump can still claim that he's innocent and that he can still claim the prosecution overall is politically motivated. Now of course it's going to be a very fine line and there is some gray area on how any of this could be interpreted, especially when it comes to whether Trump can actually call out election fraud and other things like it. It will also affect how much Trump can defend himself from accusations. Remember these are all the things blocking him as he goes into the 2024 elections and also when it comes as well to criminal charges where he's trying to explain his position to voters when he's on the campaign trail. Now if Judge Chutkan believes that Trump has violated the order, then he could face fines or even jail time. And Trump meanwhile does not appear that he's gonna follow the gag order. He described the gag order during a speech in Iowa and said that he's willing to go to jail if necessary. Watch. And they're getting beaten very badly by me in the polls. They think the only way they can catch me is to stop me from speaking. They want to take away my voice and a judge gave a gag order today. Did you hear that on speech? Which I believe is totally unconstitutional what she did. A judge gave a gag order. A judge doesn't like me too much. Her whole life is not liking me. But she gave a gag order. You know what a gag order is? You can't speak badly about your opponent. But this is weaponry all being done because Joe Biden is losing the election and losing very very badly to all of us in the polls. He's losing badly. But what they don't understand is that I am willing to go to jail if that's what it takes for our country to win and become a democracy again. When the gag order was announced, Trump's campaign spokesperson Liz Harrington said in a statement that the decision was an absolute abomination. She described it as another partisan knife stuck in the heart of our democracy by crooked Joe Biden who has granted the right to muzzle his political opponent, the leading candidate for the 2024, in 2024. Now Trump has repeatedly framed the rolling criminal charges against him as the new form of election fraud. And the same day the gag order was unveiled that Trump was heading into court in Manhattan to face allegations that he overvalued his properties, that's the case where the judge set the value of Mar-a-Lago at 18 million dollars. Now this is outside the gag order given it's a separate case. But it does suggest that Trump is not backing down on calling out what he sees as problems in the prosecution. Watch. Any other judge in New York, the trial brought by the corrupt and racist AG Peekaboo James would be dismissed and over with. I'm worth much more than my financial statements so there could be no fraud. I have a 100% disclaimer clause so again there could be no fraud. This trial is an election interference witch-hunt and everybody knows it. All of the banks that I dealt with were very happy with us. They thought I was a great customer. They were all paid back in full with interest. They never even sent a default notice. So in addition to everything else there's no victim. The victims are all of the people that are being murdered in the streets of New York and your Attorney General does nothing about it. She's incompetent. She's a racist and she's incompetent. New York State should intercede and stop this total travesty of justice. The people of our country are watching and they all get it. It's a travesty of justice. It's a kangaroo court. Thank you very much. Back on the gag order Trump's legal team immediately filed a notice to appeal and on October 15 just before the order was issued Trump claimed on Truth Social this is an attempt to take away his First Amendment rights. He said it takes away his ability to campaign and his ability to defend himself and he said his political opponents are doing this because they quote want to cheat and interfere in the 2024 presidential election. Now he noted in a separate post I've got eight separate lawsuits going on that have been started or strongly influenced by the Biden administration for purposes of election interference. Now Tom Fitton at Judicial Watch published a video afterwards where he declared the gag order is a form of quote unprecedented abuse, abuse of prosecution and election interference and he noted that Trump is facing legal charges and attacks and that stating his defense to those attacks is a necessary part of his 2024 campaign. Watch. They're pretending that Trump has no right to complain about these abuses, complain about this prosecution, complain about the likelihood of a jury being biased here in the District of Columbia, complain about Joe Biden, complain about the judge and defend himself in the middle of a campaign from a prosecution brought by the administration of his opponent. Others noted that the personal attacks in the legal case well they've gone both ways. With the judge Trump was criticized, Judge Chutkin, but Chutkin has also made statements that suggest she has a pre-existing bias. Now real clear investigations noted that in previous cases she has claimed that the idea that the 2020 elections were stolen, she said it's a conspiracy theory. She described January 6 as a mob attack on the foundations of democracy and noted that under normal circumstances judges should recuse themselves, in fact they're required to, if they have personal bias or prejudice on a case. Well folks that's it for YouTube for the rest of the episode come join us on Epic TV. We'll talk about the new push from both Republicans and Democrats to bring those Palestinian refugees right here to the United States and we'll also be talking about the climate emergency. It's no longer settled science, in fact there were peer-reviewed scientific papers now saying otherwise. It is no longer settled science. We'll be talking about that and why it matters and what that means going forward. 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