Federal judge speaks out after Trump attacks NY judge’s daughter

Andrew Judge Walton, appointed by President Bush. This is this is someone who has had a lot of experience with January 6th defendants in Washington, DC Very unusual for a federal judge to do public interviews like this. And he’s decided he wanted to have something to say about Donald Trump’s conduct. You know, it is very unusual to have judges speaking out in this way. But it’s worth noting that Judge Walton, extremely respected judge in DC, is not the only judge who has been speaking out. You have Barrel Howell, the former chief judge, Royce Lamberth. He used to be on the Fisk, the FISA court, also a very well respected judge, all speaking out about the problem of violence, of the problem of people spewing lies about the judiciary. And you know, it makes sense that that is where we are. Unfortunately, as a country, we lived through a time where the media was constantly attacked because it was a check on the power of Donald Trump. We lived through that with respect to the Department of Justice, individual prosecutors, as I know very well for the same reason, because it was a check on his power and now that he is facing enormous civil liability and criminal liability were the first of the criminal cases starting on the 15th. This is, this is all to be expected and it’s all a sign of where we are as a country. And it’s good to see judges in a bipartisan way, speaking up about the rule of law and how central and important it is to our country. And and it’s worth noting, by the way, that that Donald Trump’s latest attack on the judge’s daughter is false. He’s attributing a social media post to her that she didn’t make at all. But I I do think that people are struggling to understand why the gag order that Judge Michonne has issued against Donald Trump does somehow allows for this to happen. Well, it’ll be interesting to see whether it gets expanded in light of this. And I think it is because the judges are very reticent to apply the gag orders to themselves out of a sense of duty, of a sense of mission and purpose to the rule of law that they’re there to protect other participants in the process, whether it’s jurors, witnesses, court staff. But they tend to look at themselves last in that in that list and and litany of people. And frankly you would think that it it is, it’s so sort of out of it’s just inconceivable to think that that’s something they really should have to worry about. But that’s where we are. So I I will be interested to see whether Judge Marshawn, if this continues and frankly the other judges who are handling these cases expand these gag orders because of course you want to make sure that you’re stemming the the potential violence. You don’t want to wait until it’s actually happened.