Kind of a preview of how shell run her court and this case. And in deciding whether to grant Special Counsel jack smiths request for protective order limiting what the disgraced expresident can and cannot say publicly about the case, judge chutkan cuts through Talking Points like a hot knife through butter. On the First Amendment protections, they are so fond of citing, mr. Trump, like every american, has a First Amendment right to free speech. But that right is not absolute. Adding that without a protective order, the disclosure of discovery materials could lead to witnesses being harassed or otherwise interfering with a fair trial. What about the fact that trump is running for president. And chutkan did not mince words on that eithe saying, this is a criminal trial and i will not take into consideration the impact will have for have for a political came on either side. He will have all of the rights hesen tieptled to. The existence is not going to have any bearing on my decision. I intend to keep politics out of this. And judge chutkan had this to say, your clients defense is supposed to happen in this courtroom not on the internet. And to the extent youre client wants to make statements on the internet, they have to yield to Witness Security and safety. I could see the possibility for a lot of problems here. Indeed. Now, we should point out the judge did not grant the sweeping protective order jack smith had asked for. Both sides got some of what they were seeking. But make no mistake, in her words and in her demeanor on the bench today, judge chutkan said she did not come to play. Just moments ago the judge issued that protective order. Weve assembled an expert team to break it down. But i want to read one section that seems aimed squarely at reigning in donald trump. Defense counsel may provide sensitive to the defendant as necessary to assist in preparation of the defense and Defense Counsel is not required to be present while the defendant reviews sensitive materials. However, if Defense Counsel does show or provide sensitive materials to the defendant, the Defense Counsel may not allow the defendant to write down any personally identifying information that is contained in the sensitive materials. If the defendant takes notes regarding sensitive materials, Defense Counsel must inspect those notes to ensure that the defendant has not copied down personally identifying information. Moreover, during any time that the defendant reviews sensitive materials outside of the Defense Counsel presence, the defendant must not have access to any device capable of photocopy or recording or other wise replicating the sensitive materials including a smart cellular device. And that is where we start this hour. Lets bring in msnbc legal analyst lisa rubin and with us former u. S. Attorney harry litman and reporter for the washington post, Carol Letting is here. Judge chutkan issuing her protective order and i believe youve had a chance to look through it. What jumps out to you . The extreme solicitation for witnesses. Shes making very clear that he cant be in any way intimidating or even demeaning them and she put everything that has to do with witnesses in the compartment of sensitive information. Not just grand jury witnesses, and anyone that the government has interviewed. That is the first thing. And then the second thing is even as she gave a nugget to the Trump Defense team of not defining everything as sensitive materials, she took it away by making clear that anything that government was concerned about, in terms of both the jury pool and going after witnesses would violate the order anyway. So i think as you say, alisa, she has put them on notice and given a verdict that is i would say 6040 for the government. At one point the judge seemed to nod to the classified documents case saying, quote, he, trump, has a habit of taking documents he shouldnt take. Walk us through some of the conditions of this protective order and the rules around who could see documents from trumps team and where and when. So the people would could see documents that are marked as sensitive are people who are employed by trumps team and that is a point of contention today. Because john lauro was one of President Trumps lawyers essentially said we are the david in this fight. And the Department Of Justice and Special Counsels office with 60 lawyers at their disposal, they are the goliath and we need people we dont pay to get through all of the discovery. That didnt go anywhere with judge chutkan. He said by your definition, mr. Lauro, people who are ununindicted coconspirators to look at sensitive materials. So she was putting the screws to the trump team today and i would say it is more than 6040 for the government because of one of the things that he just said. All of the things that the government cared about is already defined as sensitive materials and tom wyndham stood up today and said the vast majority of materials that will be produced to President Trump, those are sensitive materials as well. Lisa, i want you to ask what sounds like a stark rebuke from judge chutkan at the end. I caution you and your client to take special care in your public statements about this case. I will take whatever measures are necessary to safeguard the integrity of these proceedings. Even arguably and ambiguous statements from parties or their counsel if they could be reasonably interpreted to intimidate witnesses or to prejudice potential jurors could threaten the process. The more inflammatory statements, the greater the urgency will be that we proceed to trial quickly. She knows who she is dealing with here. She does. She absolutely knows who shes dealing with. And shes also drawing a distinction between the protective order, which governors the use of discovery or evidence in the case, and the obligations that are incumbent ton trump and his lawyers not to intimidate witnesses or tamper with the Jury Pool Irrespective of whether the threats concern them and shes saying your client has a condition of release, hes a free person right now because of those conditions. And if he intimidates witnesses, tampers with the joor jury pool and shares investigation or threatens the Fair Administration of justice in my watch, that is not going to fly with me. I want to underline a part of this. If they would be reasonably interpreted to intimidate witnesses. Does trumps post about if you come after me, ill come after you, does that fly . Is that to me . Yes, harry. Im sorry. I think it falls totally flat. Look, i agree with basically everything lisa is saying and one more point. She treated trump like a truant child. The most sort of galling thing of all. Obviously he started at a level of mistrust. So he started with a record as it were. Now there will be exactly this debate. The reason there is something for him is not just what he got, but there will be a next level where they argue about terms and then she imposes something more strict and then at the end of the day, the big hammer she has, of course, but she doesnt want to deploy it early or at all if they could help it, it is putting him in jail. But they know that at the end of the day, it is her courtroom and her witnesses to worry about and it is her process to take account of and she will, i think, she showed today, be unafraid if he pushed her to the wall of responding with the most severe sanction. Carol, the guidelines here, they are Crystal Clear and unambiguous and of course the question becomes will donald trump adhere to these rules . Will he adhere to this protective order or perhaps this question is can he . Is he temperamentally capable of doing what is laid out here . Looking back, in the history of Donald Trumps annuls of following rules, following the law, it seems unlikely that he will follow these until punished rather severely. I think what is interesting and let me say two things. One, in a way, were all all of your viewers are going through law school again as we follow this. And i want to remind viewers that, you know, what judge chutkan is ordering is completely routine other than this is a form he president. Which hes asking for and demanding is that there not be commentary outside of the Courthouse Steps or in Donald Trumps case on truth social that tampers with the pool or seems or appears to threaten witnesses. Judges have come down so hard on any public commentary by lawyers toward defendants that threatens either of those. This is no mystery to anybody who has walked into that courthouse or done any business in it. That is exactly what is required. And i think harry and lisa nail it, donald trump has already said on tuesday, for skanl pell, im going to say whatever i want. And hes also basically said, as you flashed on the screen a little bit ago, if you go after me, im coming after you. What could be more threatening honestly from a president ial candidate . I think what is outside of the pail here, and it seems to be warranted based on Prior Experience with donald trump, is that he is not allowed to see any identifying information of people who have been interviewed and not be able to share it. And the attorneys are on the hook if anything comes out, right. If donald trump issues a threat against witness number two, or so and so lied when he said this, when that happens, those attorneys, theyre licenses and probably a good bit of money is on the line as a possible penalty. But harry is right, the ultimate penalty is jail. That would be a very big step in this case with a president ial candidate and a likely nominee. But it is there. And there has been worse as weve said. Duct tape on the mouth. Harry, it is a person who does not believe that the rules apply to them and judge chutkan took pains to say that in the eyes of the court, donald trump is not special. Quote, hes a criminal defendant, hes going to have restrictions like every other defendant. And at another point referring to his candidacy of his day job. Realistically, if trump doesnt follow this protective order in addition to going to trial even faster, what other recourses does judge chutkan have . It is a really good question. Because what she wants to do, she contemplated that he will do this, that he will at least try to push on the border. And so she wants to have sort of to be able to go in iteration, she doesnt want to go to the ultimate sanction and i think that is explaining part of what she did today in saying all right, maybe you could look at or comment on nonsesive material. So the next thing would be a stronger protective order and give the government all they want and after that could be a potential gag order and there will be one, two or three very stern lectors where she would say, i have one remedy left and if do you this again, i cannot do anything other than put you in jail for contempt and once she has said that, if he does it again, there really isnt anything else she could do. Query whether in some respects trump seeks out this kind of martyrdom, because hes had the message really brought home to him that there will be consequences. And i want to say carol makes a great point with the lawyers. Chutkan has strong leverage over the lawyers. She will call them to the carpet and really hammer them for somehow trying to distance themselves from trump. This is your client, you best advise him, mr. Lauro, et cetera, et cetera and that is part of the overall sort of menu of options. But the one at the end of the day is what undergurds it all, she doesnt want to get it there if she doesnt have to but he may force her. There is a piece i want to understand. Is the protective order is limited to sensitive documents and that includes Audio Recording of witnesses. Why is that significant . It is significant because today in court tom wyndham, one of the prosecutors with the Special Counsel, said as a default with respect to all of the interviews that the Special Counsels office has done with witnesses outside of the grand jury, they made Audio Recordings of those. Most of them will be reduced to transcripts. But we know with donald trump that the sound of somebodys voice describing what they participated in, or what they heard, a conversation they took part in, it is far more powerful than the transcript alone. The january 6 Committee Hearings are a testament to that proposition. So the fact that tom wyndham said there are hundreds of Audio Records with witnesses that we talked to outside of the grand jury. I felt like you could hear a pin drop at that moment in the courtroom. For me that was a very significant moment because while those materials are sensitive now, and they wont be in the public dpoe domain now, that is not true of a trial in this matter. Harry, we know the government is prepared to turn over 11. 6 million pages of discovery as well as a hard drive containing extractions from various devices. At one point judge chutkan jokes to the trump lawyers, that, quote, i could imagine your motion for a trial date now. The former parallel in me knows that 11. 6 million pages of discovery is a lot of boxes. It is a lot to go through. Does it actually slow it down . Only a little. You know, it is the Parallels Today will tell you when theyre dealing in terabytes, that is when it gets huge. This is a paper case. But what really matters to me and this dove tails to what weve been talking about, theyre going to give him all of the transcripts and all of the statementsm they do not have until the eve of trial. Theyre going to do it any way and we think that is what made him kind of wig out in maralago. Hes now going to see in Black And White and, as lisa emphasized, hear mike pence say things about him but not just him, mark meadows, anybody you could name they have interviewed and hes going to be enraged and it is exactly that, that he has to have a muzzle put on him. But the big point is theyre giving him almost everything there is to give. There is this extra Little Mystery about a few classified documents. But theyre saying, have it, prepare your defense but dont try to intimidate witnesses with it. Although the judge was adamant that she wont let his day job get in the way of the proceedings. But if it goes to trial in january, look at that calendar, it will collide with early votes, with primaries, with debates just how is that going to work . It will play right into donald trump and his lawyers claim outside of the courthouse and on the internet that the Justice Department writ large came for donald trump as he ran for president to try to stop him from being president. Now we all know based on looking at the indictment and the facts within, and also understanding the independence of jack smith, totally independent of the Department Of Justice, we all know that is a really dubious claim that this was to try to stop him from being the president. However it is helping his trumps claims and specious one that, hey, it is all an effort to stop you, my supporters, from getting the candidate in the white house that you want. And the timing is just playing right into his hand in that respect. Jack smith, i have to say, and his team, a stunning amount of work in a stunningly short period of time. Think about november 18th, 2023, and an indictment just a few weeks ago. It is there is no case that ive seen that has been brought that quickly. It builds on some of the information the Department Of Justice had gathered before that. But he to do a lot of this work and repeat a lot of january 6 interviews himself. Along with his teammates. He worked as fast as i think is possibly is humanly possible from just looking at it from someone who has covered a court before, a Federal Court A Complex Conspiracy alleged in the pages. But his hand is weakened by this timing. Lisa, two things could be true at same time. It could be true that judge is not going to make decisions predicated on how they impact a political outcome. And it could be true that she knows this time line. She understands how these dates stack up. This is the first time we saw her on the bench providing in real life over this case. If today was a coming attraction of how she is going to be as the judge on this case, i wonder what you think we could expect moving forward . I think we could expect a trial more expeditiously than the trump team could ever want. And i do think that her way of calibrating their behavior within the necessity of having a trial sooner is perhaps the best incentive to get the kind of behavior from donald trump that she wants, that and the threats against the lawyers have obligations of their own. D. C. Has more stringent local rules for what the lawyers themselves can say. But i do think that judge chutkan is a pragmatic person and it may not be beyond here to reach out to other judges who are presiding over matters involving donald trump. Whether civil or criminal, and see what flexibility is there to try those cases at other times. When can this case realistically be tried. Shes not required to live in a vacuum and have no contact with those other judges. There is no rule that governs who should go first based on who charges first and there is similarly no rule that prohibits her from communicating with other judges in the state or federal system. Whether she finds that is appropriate, well all learn together. Lisa rubin, i was looking forward to have you with me in the table, but now outside of the courthouse. Thank you so much for being with us. Harry, you are sticking with me. When we come back, some unexpected news from attorney general Merrick Garland appointing a Special Counsel to