A New York judge this week imposed a gag order on Donald Trump, limiting what the Republican can say about witnesses, jurors and most prosecutors ahead of his April trial over alleged hush-money payments.
Some 850 miles away, the judge in another one of Trump’s criminal cases suggested he’s open to considering a similar measure — not against the former president, but Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.
In a recent ruling, Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee all but invited any of the 15 remaining defendants in the election interference case to seek an order that would limit what Willis and her team could say outside of court.
McAfee wrote that the DA’s fiery speech earlier this year to a historically Black church in Atlanta — where she suggested her critics were playing the “race card” — didn’t cross the red line of denying defendants a fair trial. But the remarks, he said, were “legally improper.”
“The time may well have arrived for an order preventing the State from mentioning the case in any public forum to prevent prejudicial pretrial publicity,” the rookie judge wrote in a March 15 decision that resisted an attempt tor remove Willis and her office from the case. But McAfee noted that a gag order was “not the motion presently before the Court.”
The passage offers what could be an enticing option for defense attorneys seeking an edge over Willis. But, so far, none have taken the bait.
Three defense attorneys interviewed this week by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, two of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss legal strategy, indicated that they don’t see a benefit to muzzling Willis — at least not for now. Two said they are instead hoping Willis will say things publicly that they can exploit in court and in public.
“Let them keep making this a better case for us,” one defense attorney said of the prosecution.
A Willis spokesman declined to comment for this story.
But the DA has showed no signs of…
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