Former President Donald Trump, who has been restricted by a federal judge about how he publicly discusses the Jan. 6 conspiracy and obstruction case against him, urged a potential witness in a similar Georgia state case to not testify.
In a post on his social media site Monday, Trump said he had heard Georgia’s former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan was set to testify before a grand jury in Fulton County that is expected to hand down an indictment against Trump soon.
“He shouldn’t. I barely know him but he was, right from the beginning of this Witch Hunt, a nasty disaster for those looking into the Election Fraud that took place in Georgia,” Trump wrote.
The post came amid a flurry of posts that raised questions about Trump’s ability to abide by a federal judge’s decision Friday to limit how Trump can discuss the separate federal case against him. Both the federal case and the expected Georgia one involve Trump’s attempts to ensure the winner of the 2020 election, Joe Biden, was not seated as president, with the latter case seen dealing with Trump trying to get that state’s results overturned.
On Friday, the judge overseeing the federal case, U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, issued an order prohibiting Trump from revealing information he will receive from prosecutors as part of the pretrial preparation.
Chutkan did not grant prosecutors’ request for a broader limit on what Trump could talk about, but she did make it clear to Trump’s lawyers that his bid to return to the White House will not grant him privileges unavailable to other felony criminal defendants. She also cautioned that she would take seriously any statements Trump makes that could be construed as intimidating a witness.
While Trump’s post was about a potential witness in the state case, instead of the federal one, against him, several commenters on X, formerly known as Twitter, said it could be seen as crossing a line.
“Witness tampering in real time,” posted Barb McQuade, a Univerisity of Michigan law professor and on-air legal analyst for MSNBC.
“This morning’s first attempt at witness intimidation,” wrote George Conway, a longtime Trump legal critic.
In addition to that post, Trump also did post about the federal case and Chutkan, the judge in it.
In one, he quoted Chutkan’s comments from a sentencing proceeding for one of the U.S. Capitol attackers on Jan. 6, 2021. “She obviously wants me behind bars. VERY BIASED & UNFAIR!” Trump posted.
In another post, he called the prosecutor in the federal case “lowlife prosecutor, Deranged Jack Smith.”
