Former President Donald Trump gestures after talking at a fundraiser occasion for the Alabama GOP on Friday.

Butch Dill/AP

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Butch Dill/AP

Former President Donald Trump gestures after talking at a fundraiser occasion for the Alabama GOP on Friday.

Butch Dill/AP

The Justice Department on Friday requested a federal choose overseeing the felony case in opposition to former President Donald Trump in Washington to step in after he launched a put up on-line that appeared to vow revenge on anybody who goes after him.

Prosecutors requested U.S. District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan to difficulty a protecting order within the case a day after Trump pleaded not responsible to prices of making an attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss and block the peaceable transition of energy. The order — which is totally different from a so-called “gag order” — would restrict what data Trump and his authorized group might share publicly in regards to the case introduced by particular counsel Jack Smith.

Such protecting orders are widespread in felony circumstances, however prosecutors mentioned it is “particularly important in this case” as a result of Trump has posted on social media about “witnesses, judges, attorneys, and others associated with legal matters pending against him.”

Prosecutors pointed particularly to a put up on Trump’s Truth Social platform from earlier Friday during which Trump wrote, in all capital letters, “If you go after me, I’m coming after you!”

Prosecutors mentioned they’re prepared handy over a “substantial” quantity of proof — “much of which includes sensitive and confidential information” — to Trump’s authorized group.

They instructed the choose that if Trump have been to start posting about grand jury transcripts or different proof supplied by the Justice Department, it might have a “harmful chilling effect on witnesses or adversely affect the fair administration of justice in this case.”

Prosecutors’ proposed protecting order seeks to forestall Trump and his attorneys from disclosing supplies supplied by the federal government to anybody apart from individuals on his authorized group, potential witnesses, the witnesses’ attorneys or others authorized by the court docket. It would put stricter limits on “sensitive materials,” which would come with grand jury witness testimony and supplies obtained by means of sealed search warrants.

A Trump spokesperson mentioned in an emailed assertion that the previous president’s put up “is the definition of political speech,” and was made in response to “dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs.”

The indictment unsealed this week accuses Trump of openly conspiring with allies to unfold falsehoods and concoct schemes meant to overturn his election loss to President Joe Biden as his authorized challenges floundered in court docket.

The indictment chronicles how Trump and his Republican allies, in what Smith described as an assault on a “bedrock function of the U.S. government,” repeatedly lied in regards to the leads to the 2 months after he misplaced the election and pressured his vice chairman, Mike Pence, and state election officers to take motion to assist him cling to energy.

Trump faces prices together with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. and conspiracy to hinder Congress’ certification of Biden’s electoral victory.

It’s the third felony case introduced this 12 months in opposition to the the early front-runner within the 2024 Republican presidential major. But it is the primary case to attempt to maintain Trump answerable for his efforts to stay in energy throughout the chaotic weeks between his election loss and the assault by his supporters on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

After his court docket look on Thursday earlier than a Justice of the Peace choose, Trump characterised the case as a “persecution” designed to harm his 2024 presidential marketing campaign. His authorized group has described it as an assault on his proper to free speech and his proper to problem an election that he believed had been stolen.

Smith has mentioned prosecutors will search a “speedy trial” in opposition to Trump within the election case. Judge Chutkan has ordered the federal government to file a quick by Thursday proposing a trial date. The first court docket listening to in entrance of Chutkan is scheduled for Aug. 28.

Trump is already scheduled to face trial in March within the New York case stemming from hush-money funds made throughout the 2016 marketing campaign and in May within the federal case in Florida stemming from labeled paperwork discovered at his Mar-a-Lago property.