'It really plays into his hands': Expert says DOJ's latest filing hands Trump a gift
Jack Smith’s demand that Donald Trump be barred from bringing “irrelevant disinformation” into Judge Tanya Chutkan’s Jan. 6 courtroom could have handed a gift to the former president, an expert warned Thursday.
Smith filed his request Wednesday that Trump’s team be forbidden from making the conspiracy theories — such as his claim that the President Joe Biden is behind the trial as a way to silence his main competitor — part of his defense.
But speaking on CNN, New York Times’ politics writer Michael Gold argued imposing the rule “plays into his hands.”
“I wonder how much it will even matter, because Trump's argument about these being political prosecutions is so pervasive at this point, it is hard to imagine a jury in D.C. hasn't heard it,” he said. “Politics is kind of in the air there, even if you are not involved.
“I'm sure it is a very worthy idea to keep this out of the courtroom and keep the case focus on the legal question, but this is such a campaign message for him that it almost doesn't feel like it doesn't matter what happens inside."
CNN's legal analyst Elie Honig agreed, saying that trying to keep Trump's theories out of the courtroom would be a massively difficult job.
"When everybody knows the person, when everybody sees the tweets or the Truth Socials, how do you manage that?" he asked.
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"This will be a challenge for the judge. During jury selection, you will have to try to vet that out, do you have preconceived notions? During the trial, it will be a day by day policing effort."
Gold went on to say that trying to limit what Trump is allowed to say in the courtroom directly reinforces the message that he wants to get out there.
"I feel like it is so rare for us to be able to say this is normal when we're talking about one of the Trump cases. but I think most people don't know the ins and outs of the legal system," he said.
"And Trump has already outlined this narrative around these trials. So if your narrative for the last however many months is they are trying to suppress me, look at all these gag orders, they're trying to take away my right to say what I want to say, and now you have this filing? It really plays into his hands."