Judges and prosecutors seem so afraid of violating Donald Trump’s First Amendment rights that they are undermining the integrity of the criminal justice system by seeking and issuing fundamentally flawed gag orders that fail to prohibit attacks on the presiding judges and main prosecutors.

For example, in the election interference case brought against Trump by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Judge Juan Merchan issued a gag order preventing Trump from making statements—or directing others to make statements—about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and their relatives if he intends to interfere with their work on the case as well as any comments about jurors.

The order failed to prohibit any comments about D.A. Bragg or Judge Merchan, and Trump immediately exploited this loophole by naming and criticizing Merchan’s adult daughter on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social. Bragg’s office has now sent a letter to the judge asking him to either clarify that his order does encompass his own family and D.A. Bragg’s family, or expand it to cover their families.

Merchan’s order is not unique in exempting judges and main prosecutors, as it closely tracked Judge Tanya Chutkan’s order in the case brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith—as well as Judge Arthur Engoron’s order in the civil fraud trial brought by New York State Attorney General Letitia James after Trump made various false public claims about the judge’s law clerk.

There is no reason gag orders should engender such fear. As Professor Tonja Jacobi has written: “A gag order (or non-dissemination order) may seem like a core interference with the First Amendment right to free speech, and an especially worrisome one because the First Amendment is most protective against “prior restraint”—banning speech in........

© The Daily Beast