A protective order sought by the Department of Justice to prohibit former President Donald Trump and his lawyers from sharing discovery materials from his trial on the 2020 election charges with unauthorized people comes as they want to "take another shot" at him, former Rep. Pete King said on Newsmax Sunday.
"Obviously there have to be some restrictions put and that's all known to the Trump lawyers," the New York Republican, appearing on Newsmax with former Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., told Newsmax's "Wake Up America." "The law is the law… [but] to me, this is just another stunt by the Justice Department."
U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan gave Trump until 5 p.m. on Monday to respond, but Trump's attorneys asked for three more days to prepare their response, until Thursday, and Kingston said he doesn't think that was a fair call.
"But then again, when has Donald Trump gotten a fair call with the U.S. Department of Justice in the last 5-10 years," he said. "Protective orders are usually issued when it has to do with preventing harm for someone or national security, or intimidation by another witness. Neither of those seems to apply."
Trump, he acknowledged, does use his rhetoric on social media to attack others, including with his post saying "IF YOU GO AFTER ME, I'M COMING AFTER YOU!" on Friday afternoon.
"As a lawyer, you would not want your client to say that, but on the other hand, it's still political rhetoric," said Kingston.
Meanwhile, King agreed that there are "probably a million things" Trump has done wrong "under normal political standards, but somehow he always lands on top."
"The Justice Department's going after him in the middle of a presidential campaign and the former president has to respond in kind," said King. "They want to be able to tie up his campaign and [not] let him respond. So I think this is in many ways a political gift to Donald Trump."
Meanwhile, Chutkan, the judge in the case, has a record of being tough on Jan. 6 defendants, and Kingston said he thinks that means Trump won't get a fair shake, but still, he'll win.
"But what the Democrats really want is next year, if Donald Trump is the nominee, they're going to roll out Jan. 6 footage that's going to be their 30-second ad and sound bite over and over again, just so they can continue talking about Jan. 6 and tie it to Donald Trump," said Kingston. "That's the real goal of this whole exercise."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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