Alleged assassination plot against president zelenskyy. We begin this hour with a looming deadline for former president donald trump. His legal team has six hours to respond to Special Counsel jack smiths request to limit what trump can say about the ongoing 2020 election interference case. The request for a special order came after the doj said trumps social media posts could, quote, have a harmful, Chilling Effect on witnesses or adversely affect the Fair Administration of justice. The doj cited a post in which the former president wrote, quote, if you go after me, im coming after you. Campaign called the postpolitical speech and said it was meant for the former president s political adversaries, but just this morning, trump put out another set of posts attacking the Special Counsel calling on the judge presiding over the case to recuse yourself and accusing mike pence, former vp of disloyalty. Joining us now nbc news justice and intelligence correspondent, ken dilanian and tali farh
after you. the judge can rule anytime after she receives the response from trump lawyers, and that could be as soon as tonight. it will be interesting in this first ruling from the judge to see what she says having come under attack herself from mr. trump. he says he can t get a fair shake from her. we ll be watching for any comments he makes about mr. trump s ability to attack core personnel, prosecutors, judges on social media, jose. how unusual is this kind of request from the justice department? well, jose it is actually entirely typical for a protective order to be worked out early in a case, to make sure that the integrity of the proceedings are protected, hence the word. of course obviously there s a lot about this case that is atypical. i do think it s important to emphasize that the special counsel s reasons here are entirely ordinary, and they mostly have to do with protecting witnesses, and so