Government

With Friends Like These, Trump Doesn't Even Need To Violate The Gag Order

But he will anyway.

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(Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)

As Donald Trump’s criminal trial in New York barrels toward the finish, his Republican allies are contorting themselves to show support for the defendant. This morning’s courtroom entourage included Reps. Lauren Boebert, Andy Biggs, and Matt Gaetz.

Ever the gentleman, Gaetz distracted reporters from making jokes about Boebert’s ability to restrain herself at public events by invoking the specter of domestic terrorists.

Rep. Jim Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, has not schlepped up to Manhattan to kiss the ring. But he did one better than that, acting as a surrogate to launder Trump’s attacks on Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo, a member of the prosecution team. Colangelo served stints in the New York Attorney General’s Office and the Justice Department until 2022, when he returned to New York to work for District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Under the terms of his gag order, Trump can’t publicly attack line prosecutors, including Colangelo. He got pretty darn close this morning, though.

“You have a lead person from the DOJ is running the trial, so Biden’s office is running this trial” he told reporters outside the courtroom.

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Trump tried the trick of not naming the judge’s law clerk in a similar hallway rant during the civil fraud trial, and still got held in contempt by Justice Arthur Engoron. As of this writing, the prosecutors have not moved to find him in contempt a tenth time, forcing Justice Juan Merchan to make good on his threat to jail Trump if he refuses to behave.

But Jim Jordan had no such scruples about naming the lawyer.

“The fact that a former senior Biden Justice Department official—whose previous employment consisted of leading ‘a wave of state litigation against Trump administration policies’—is now leading the prosecution of President Biden’s chief political rival only adds to the perception that the Biden Justice Department is politicized and weaponized,” he sneered in a letter to NYAG Letitia James, demanding a slew of prosecutorial documents that he knows damn well he’ll never get from Colangelo’s time in her office.

What is the congressional interest implicated in a state prosecution? Well, see, SDNY is a part of the Justice Department, and the DOJ passed on prosecuting Trump for the campaign finance violation, so … ISN’T IT JUST OBVIOUS?

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Or as Trump put it, “This is all Biden-run things, meaning Biden and his thugs, because I don’t know if he knows he’s alive. And it’s a shame what’s happening to our country.”

Tomorrow, the country will be spared the “shame” of this proceeding as Trump takes the day to attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.

Or … part of the day, anyway. He’ll be there in Florida for a little while before flying off to Minnesota for a fundraiser.

Priorities!

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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