Welcome back, Deadline: Legal Newsletter readers.
We're between Supreme Court argument sessions, with the justices set to take the bench again Oct. 30. But the court still made news this week — in public remarks and on the shadow docket, while Donald Trump was gagged (in court) for the second time this month and MAGA lawyers Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro copped plea deals in Trump's Georgia case.
On the court that Trump helped build, Amy Coney Barrett told a law school crowd she thinks it's a "good idea" for the justices to have an ethics code. Her support for the modest measure followed similar comments last month from her Democratic-appointed colleague Elena Kagan. But in voicing support for this necessary action, the Trump appointee's remarks remind us the court still hasn't taken it.
Meanwhile, on the shadow docket, the justices allowed the Biden administration to regulate "ghost gun" kits, which people can buy online to make untraceable weapons at home. In an unsigned order Monday, the court tossed a GOP judge's move to exempt gun part manufacturers from regulation. Notably, there were no dissents from the order effectively smacking down the Texas jurist. That wasn't so in August, when the court split 5-4 to allow nationwide enforcement, with Barrett and Chief Justice John Roberts joining the Democratic appointees in the majority. Expect the more-divided approach on guns when the court hears argument Nov. 7 on Second Amendment rights for people subject to domestic violence restraining orders.
Elsewhere on the shadow docket, the court on Friday afternoon blocked what the Biden administration called "an unprecedented injunction" that would have significantly restricted government communications with social media companies about content it deems misinformation. Naturally, GOP appointees Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch dissented. But this isn't the last word, as the justices will take on the appeal and issue a full decision later this term. We'll see if Friday's 6-3 split holds in what promises to be a consequential ruling.
On the Trump docket, the former president earned his second limited gag order of the month this week. This one came from U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington. The judge presiding over the federal election interference case took special counsel Jack Smith's warnings to heart, barring the former president from targeting Smith, his staff and others connected to the case. Perhaps Chutkan read MSNBC Daily columnist and former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner's piece lamenting that the courts had been treating Trump with "kid gloves." Trump is appealing the order, which Chutkan on Friday agreed to pause while litigation over it proceeds.
But the former president's first gag order is in full effect. The leading GOP presidential candidate has been restricted in his New York civil fraud trial, after posting on social media about the judge's law clerk. That judge, Arthur Engoron, fined Trump $5,000 on Friday after Trump's campaign left the post about the law clerk on its website for days. For more on what these gag orders do — and don't do — I broke them down here.
That civil fraud trial continued in Manhattan this week, with Trump attending even though he doesn't have to. On that note, MSNBC's "Morning Joe" pointed out Thursday that Trump blamed the trial for keeping him from the campaign trail – but, somehow, not from his Florida golf club. He isn't the only one making news in New York Attorney General Letitia James' sprawling case. To understand why, read my MSNBC colleague Lisa Rubin on the latest fallout from former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg's testimony.
And in the state election interference case, Powell made waves when she pleaded guilty Thursday, followed by Chesebro on Friday. They had requested speedy trials and were joined together in one that was set to begin this month. So we won't get a preview of Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' case against the former president just yet. And with a whopping 16 co-defendants left on the indictment, Powell and Chesebro likely won't be the last ones to drop off, so read MSNBC Daily columnist and former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance on the implications of Trump's co-defendants flipping in Georgia.
