Trump 'One Step Closer' to Jail Cell, Glenn Kirschner Warns

Donald Trump could face pretrial detention over his comments about his upcoming trial in the Department of Justice's 2020 election subversion case, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner says.

Trump, who has now been indicted four times, has faced renewed scrutiny over his Truth Social posts and other remarks about his legal troubles, which critics say go beyond his right to free speech and cross over into witness intimidation and threats. His comments have included urging former Georgia Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan to not testify before a grand jury and accusing Georgia prosecutor Fani Willis of having an affair with a gang member, without any evidence.

Late Monday, Trump and 18 allies were indicted by the Georgia grand jury on state criminal charges in connection with their efforts to overturn the former president's 2020 electoral defeat in that state. The 41-count indictment follows a two-and-a-half-year investigation by Willis, the district attorney in Georgia's Fulton County.

Trump has also said on Truth Social that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan—who is overseeing the Justice Department's case accusing him of attempting to overturn the 2020 presidential election—allegedly "admitted" she is engaging in election interference.

Trump could end up facing major consequences for his latest comments about his legal cases, Kirschner said during an interview on The Legal Breakdown podcast, hosted by Brian Tyler Cohen.

"It feels like Donald Trump is walking one step closer to a jail cell every day," Kirschner said. "And when I say a jail cell, I don't mean that he is going to be convicted of a crime anytime soon. That is still well off in the future. But he's going to end up in pretrial detention, sitting in a jail cell, because of all of the inflammatory, threatening, intimidating and harassing things that he's been saying and he's been posting."

Last week, Chutkan imposed a protective order against Trump, preventing him from releasing "sensitive" material ahead of a trial, which the Justice Department's special counsel wants to begin on January 2, 2024. Chutkan's order was more limited than the one initially sought by the department.

Trump, however, has argued that his First Amendment right to free speech allows him to publicly comment on the case and that any protective order would prevent him from exercising that right.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's presidential campaign for further comment via email.

On the podcast, Kirschner said Trump's recent comments appear to violate the pretrial release order set by Chutkan after Trump's arraignment earlier in August, meaning the remarks could land him in pretrial detention.

The former prosecutor also said that he believes "any other pretrial defendant" would have been ordered into pretrial detention if he displayed conduct similar to Trump's, but that "it doesn't seem like the rules of convention apply" in Trump's case.

Kirschner also said he believes Chutkan should call Trump back into court sooner than his next appearance, scheduled for August 28, rather than wait "to see how many more witnesses he might try to intimidate" or "how else he might try to impugn Judge Chutkan's impartiality."

"What would he need to say, what would he need to do, what would he need to post in order to actually land himself in jail? It seems like an open question. Hopefully, we will know soon enough when he ends up back in court with Judge Chutkan," Kirschner said.

Trump's spokespersons have previously rejected Kirschner's legal analyses, previously telling Newsweek that he is "a notorious trafficker of wild conspiracy theories and dubious legal analysis" who "has been shunned by the legal community at large."