Jack Smith seeks juror protections after Trump uses Truth Social as “weapon of intimidation”

Special counsel Jack Smith on Tuesday asked the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s election interference case to impose protections for potential jurors over the former president’s “intimidation” efforts. The filing cited Trump’s Truth Social attack on a court clerk in his New York civil fraud trial last week that led to the judge in that case imposing a limited gag order on the former president.

“Given that the defendant—after apparently reviewing opposition research on court staff—chose to use social media to publicly attack a court staffer, there is cause for concern about what he may do with social media research on potential jurors in this case,” Smith’s team said in a filing to Judge Tanya Chutkan. Smith listed several reasons for the protections, but “chief among them is the defendant’s continued use of social media as a weapon of intimidation in court proceedings.”

“Given the particular sensitivities of this case, stemming both from heightened public interest and the defendant’s record of using social media to attack others, the Court should impose certain limited restrictions on the ability of the parties to conduct research on potential jurors during jury selection and trial and to use juror research,” Smith’s team wrote. The filing comes as Smith seeks a broader gag order on Trump in the case. “The defendant’s past conduct, including conduct that has taken place after and as a direct result of the indictment in this case, amply demonstrates the need for this order,” prosecutors said in a September filing.