A federal appeals court in Washington, DC, on Friday upheld a gag order on former President Donald Trump in his 2020 election interference case but placed fewer restrictions on his speech.

The 2024 Republican frontrunner is permitted to disparage special counsel Jack Smith, who indicted Trump in August on four counts of allegedly making “knowingly false” election claims while trying to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.

But the three-judge panel upheld the ban imposed by Judge Tanya Chutkan on public statements by Trump concerning known or “reasonably foreseeable” witnesses’ potential participation in the case.

“By broadly proscribing any statements about or directed to the Special Counsel and the court’s and counsel’s staffs, as well as reasonably foreseeable witnesses or their testimony, the Order sweeps too broadly,” the judges said in their opinion.

“It captures some constitutionally protected speech that lacks the features or content that would trench upon the court’s proper functioning or ability to administer justice.”

The court had previously paused the gag order while it considered Trump’s motion for appeal.

Trump, 77, and his defense team have described the gag order as unconstitutional and unprecedented, since he is the only criminal defendant to be slapped with one while campaigning for public office.

The former president announced on Truth Social Friday afternoon that he would appeal the ruling, saying:

“An Appeals Court has just largely upheld the Gag Order against me in the ridiculous J6 Case, where the Unselect January 6th Committee deleted and destroyed almost all Documents and Evidence, saying that I can be barred from talking and, in effect, telling the truth. In other words, people can speak violently and viciously against me, or attack me in any form, but I am not allowed to respond, in kind. 

“What is becoming of our First Amendment, what is becoming of our Country?”

“Today, the DC Circuit Court panel, with each judge appointed by a Democrat President, determined that a huge part of Judge Chutkan’s extraordinarily overbroad gag order was unconstitutional,” Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement.

“President Trump will continue to fight for the First Amendment rights of tens of millions of Americans to hear from the leading Presidential candidate at the height of his campaign. The Biden-led witch hunts against President Trump and the American people will fail.”

A four-judge panel on a New York appeals court also upheld a gag order on the former president last month related to his $250 million civil fraud case in Manhattan.

Chutkan’s initial gag order barred Trump from making any public statements that targeted Smith, other federal prosecutors, court staff and potential case witnesses.

Chutkan agreed with Smith’s team that Trump had a “history of using inflammatory language to target” others involved in the case — and had already threatened one witness he said had falsely testified against him.

The former president has pleaded not guilty to all charges in the case and faces up to 55 years in prison upon conviction.

The trial is scheduled to begin March 4, 2024, the day before Super Tuesday in the GOP presidential primary.