The gag order against former President Donald Trump is the “biggest assault” on the First Amendment in at least 50 years, Trump lawyer Jesse Binnall said during an interview on Breitbart News Daily.
New York County Judge Juan Merchan made waves after ruling that Trump violated a gag order during his trial, holding him in criminal contempt and threatening him with jail time. The court order warned Trump against “continued willful violations of its lawful orders and that if necessary and appropriate under the circumstances, it will impose an incarceratory punishment.” Trump was ordered to remove the “offending posts” from Truth Social.
According to Binnall, this is the “biggest assault on the First Amendment,” highlighting another aspect of the order, as it said Trump’s campaign website had to take down two posts as well.
“Let’s just talk about how it’s absolutely unprecedented. That is where you have a Biden-donating judge, who has now told the presidential campaign what they can and cannot have on their website. That is, you know — flies in the absolute face of the First Amendment.”
A gag order, a prior restraint on speech, is something the judge is abusing, essentially tossing the Constitution, according to Binnall. “It is something that is — it’s like an injunction that says, I’m going to tell you what you can and what you cannot speak about. It’s something that the British used a lot before the American war for independence as what the founders were primarily concerned about when they wrote the First Amendment,” he explained. “They were primarily concerned with government officials entering any kind of injunction against speech. And that’s why the First Amendment protection against these prior restraints is so strong.
“So for instance, during the Vietnam War, the Washington Post and New York Times wanted to publish classified information about the war while the war was continuing that would have put — in fact, did put — American servicemembers’ lives in jeopardy, and it made itself — the case made its way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said, even though it could put servicemembers’ lives in jeopardy, you can’t restrict the New York Times or The Washington Post from publishing this classified information because of the First Amendment and because of your prior restraint on speech. That’s how important this principle is,” Binall continued. “But when it’s Donald Trump running for reelection, this judge is willing to throw the Constitution completely under and be willing to sacrifice civil rights for a political and not a legal objective, which is why this is absolutely unconstitutional.”
Binnall said he believes a higher court “must step in and correct this because, you know, when President Trump goes out, and he calls out, for instance, a huge hypocrisy from the left, the fact that that Michael Cohen is a known perjurer, or the fact that you know, you have a lot of things that the judge says that President Trump can’t talk about, a prosecutor that was moved over from the Biden Justice Department to the County District Attorney’s Office in order to prosecute Donald Trump,” he said.
LISTEN:
Breitbart · Jesse Binnall – May 1, 2024“I think, again, it’s absolutely a huge first in the nation, because one of the big issues facing Americans right now is the weaponization of justice. But what Merchan wants to do is he wants to be able to dictate what issue a presidential candidate can talk about. … You see them in his order when he talks about legitimate campaign issues,” Binnall said, explaining that the judge is deciding what a legitimate campaign issue is, which is not how the Constitution works.
“This is the biggest assault on the First Amendment, I’d actually say, certainly in the last 50 years, and the silence of the American left, who used to be champions with the First Amendment, is huge hypocrisy,” Binnall said.
“The silence of the mainstream media that loves the First Amendment when it protects them, but can’t stand it if it protects Donald Trump, is simply disgusting,” he added.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
