U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing Donald Trump’s election interference case, threw the former president a lifeline during a late Sunday filing.
Newsweek reported that Chutkan turned away a request from the Department of Justice to put Trump in jail for violating a gag order she re-imposed on him. In a footnote reinstating the gag order, the judge denied federal prosecutors’ request to incorporate her order into the conditions of Trump’s release.
“Even assuming that request is procedurally proper, the court concludes that granting it is not necessary to effectively enforce the order at this time,” she wrote.
The order lifted a temporary hold she placed on her initial gag order, determining that “the right to a fair trial is not [Trump’s] alone but belongs also to the government and the public.”