Well, That Was Quick

In response to as request from Special Prosecutor Jack Smith, District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan  issued a gag order on Trump and his legal team preventing them from making specific attacks against witnesses, prosecutors and court staff.

It is a remarkably restrained response to a defendant who has absolutely no capacity for self-restraint:

A judge imposed a limited gag order on former President Donald J. Trump on Monday, restricting Mr. Trump from making public statements attacking the witnesses and specific prosecutors or court staff members involved in the federal case concerning his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

Mr. Trump’s free speech rights do not permit him “to launch a pretrial smear campaign” against those people, said the judge, Tanya S. Chutkan.

“No other defendant would be allowed to do so,” Judge Chutkan added, “and I’m not going to allow it in this case.”

But the narrowly tailored order explicitly left Mr. Trump free as he pursues his presidential campaign to continue disparaging the Justice Department and President Biden. It even allowed him to assert that he believed his criminal prosecution was politically motivated. Judge Chutkan apparently left Mr. Trump leeway to attack her as well.

………

“This trial will not yield to the election cycle,” Judge Chutkan said.

Actually the full quote from Judge Chutkan is, "This trial will not yield to the election cycle and we will not revisit the trial date." (Emphasis mine)

So no delay to the trial.

Within a few hours Trump savaged Judge Chutkan:

Just hours after a federal judge handed down a gag order which prohibits him from publicly targeting witnesses, prosecutors, and court staff, former President Donald Trump went on a tirade against the judge, likely violating the order almost immediately.

He made the comments during a campaign speech in Clive, Iowa, calling the order “totally unconstitutional” while claiming that Judge Tanya Chutkan’s “whole life is not liking me.”

OK, the NY Times and other sources say that he was not prohibited from excoriating the judge, but the Daily Beast says otherwise.  

As to which is true? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

However, I do expect him to explicitly violate the order in the upcoming week. 

The only question is what will the judge do.