A federal appeals court panel appeared poised to significantly narrow a gag order imposed against Donald Trump by the judge presiding over his Washington, D.C. criminal trial. …

Judge Patricia Millett, an appointee of President Barack Obama, suggested the gag order could amount to a straitjacket for Trump if his prosecution became the focus of attacks during a presidential debate.

“He has to speak ‘Miss Manners’ while everyone else is throwing targets at him?” Millett said skeptically during a two-hour oral argument at the federal courthouse in Washington. “It would be really hard in a debate, when everyone else is going at you full bore. Your attorneys would have to have scripted little things you can say.”

[These gag orders are offensive in every way. There are already rules and laws against intimidating witnesses, but that doesn’t justify prior restraint, especially of a person being prosecuted by the government. — Ed]