Donald Trump said the judge in his federal election interference case has an “incurable case of insanity syndrome” and insisted the charges against him should have been postponed until after his campaign after he was hit with a silence order.
The former president addressed Judge Tanya Chutkan on Monday morning, calling her a “Trump hater” in a tirade on his social media platform Truth Social, vowing to appeal and warning Joe Biden that he too will be indicted “one day” .
He also claimed that all criminal cases against him were started deliberately and coincided with the start of his campaign, and asked why prosecutors waited three years to file charges against him.
“The Obama-appointed federal judge in DC, a TRUE TRUMP HATER, is unable to give me a fair trial. Her hatred of President DONALD J. TRUMP is so great that she has a severe and incurable case of the TRUMP DISRUPTION SYNDROME!!! has been established,” Trump wrote.
“These highly political (all started by Crooked Joe Biden!) lawsuits and indictments should not begin until after the election is over! Our Founding Fathers look down on Biden with disdain!” he added.
Donald Trump, pictured Sunday at a rally in Sioux City, Iowa, has been given a gag order by the judge overseeing his January 6 case in Washington DC
“If they started the highly political Biden charges three years ago, everything would be over by now. THEY ARE WAITING FOR MY CAMPAIGN TO BEGIN!’
The messages came hours after Chutkan on Sunday lifted a gag order she imposed on Trump, preventing him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and court officials.
He has already promised to appeal the decision, calling the move unconstitutional.
The order prohibited Trump from targeting Jack Smith, the special counsel who prosecuted his case, or witnesses who might be called to testify about his efforts to compensate for his election loss.
Chutkan imposed the gag order on October 16 at the request of the Ministry of Justice.
She temporarily lifted it on October 20 after Trump’s lawyers appealed, arguing that the silence order was vaguely worded, unwieldy and unnecessary.
According to the court docket, she reversed that decision on Sunday evening.
The gag order in Washington is separate from the order imposed by the judge overseeing his civil fraud trial in New York City.
Trump reacted furiously to Chutkan’s statement on Sunday.
“The corrupt Biden administration just took away my First Amendment right to free speech,” he wrote on Truth Social.
‘NOT CONSTITUTIONAL!’
Trump has in the past called special counsel Jack Smith a “deranged lunatic” and a “thug,” among other things.
Trump faces four criminal cases and has made disparaging comments about the prosecutors in each of those cases, as well as the New York state attorney general who has filed civil fraud charges against him.
Trump has denied guilt on charges that he planned to unlawfully interfere with the vote counting and block congressional certification of his 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
Judge Tanya Chutkan on Sunday imposed another gag order on Trump, which was initially imposed on October 16 and then lifted on October 20.
Enforcing the gag orders appears to be complicated.
Trump has twice run afoul of a silence order imposed on him by Judge Arthur Engoron, who oversaw his civil fraud trial in New York, and has been fined a total of $15,000.
Engoron has warned of heavier fines, contempt of court and possible prison sentences.
“This court is well past the ‘warning’ stage,” Judge Engoron wrote last week as he imposed the initial $5,000 sentence, which he called “nominal.”
It is considered likely that Engoron will try every option before ending up in prison, which would be a nightmare from a logistical and political perspective.