“Resist the Prosecution but Obey the Court”

Former Texas District Judge Robert Barton wrote that former President Donald Trump (R) is wrong to ignore the gag orders that the judge in his Manhattan trial had levied against him: there are legal processes by which Trump could seek redress.

Barton is correct as far as he goes.

However, it’s…foolish…to blindly obey—which he is not advocating—and there are other avenues along which to Resist the Prosecution, as the headline has it.

One of those avenues is to challenge the requirement with the immediate action of disobedience, whether statute or judicial order, and force the prosecutor or the judge promptly to defend and enforce the requirement. The challenge thus emphasizes the illegitimacy of the requirement, if such is the case, and gets it modified or tossed. Or the disobeyer sanctioned if he cannot prove that case.

This is the stuff of civil disobedience, and it often proceeds at a faster pace than the stately glacial pace of legal process. Often, too, time is of the essence.

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