{"id":25392,"date":"2024-03-28T04:59:51","date_gmt":"2024-03-28T09:59:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=25392"},"modified":"2024-03-28T04:59:56","modified_gmt":"2024-03-28T09:59:56","slug":"judge-issues-gag-order-barring-donald-trump-from-commenting-on-witnesses-others-in-hush-money-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=25392","title":{"rendered":"Judge issues gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting on witnesses, others in hush money case"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A New York judge Tuesday issued a gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial<\/u><\/a>, citing the former president\u2019s history of \u201cthreatening, inflammatory, denigrating\u201d remarks about people involved in his legal cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judge Juan M. Merchan\u2019s decision, echoing a gag order in Trump\u2019s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case, came a day after he rejected the defense\u2019s push to delay the Manhattan trial until summer and ordered it to begin April 15. If the date holds, it will be the first criminal trial of a former president.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,\u201d Merchan wrote in a four-page decision granting the prosecution\u2019s request for what it deemed a \u201cnarrowly tailored\u201d gag order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge said the presumptive Republican presidential nominee\u2019s statements have induced fear and necessitated added security measures to protect his targets and investigate threats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>Trump\u2019s lawyers fought a gag order, warning it would amount to unconstitutional and unlawful prior restraint on his free speech rights. Merchan, who had long resisted imposing a gag order, said his obligation to ensuring the integrity of the trial outweighed First Amendment concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPresident Trump\u2019s political opponents have, and will continue to, attack him based on this case,\u201d Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles said in a recent court filing. \u201cThe voters have the right to listen to President Trump\u2019s unfettered responses to those attacks \u2014 not just one side of that debate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>The gag order bars Trump from either making or directing other people to make public statements on his behalf about potential witnesses and jurors in the hush-money trial. It also prohibits any statements meant to interfere with or harass the court\u2019s staff, prosecution team or their families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It does not bar comments about Merchan, whom Trump has referred to after his arraignment last year as \u201ca Trump-hating judge\u201d with a family full of \u201cTrump haters,\u201d or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat. But it puts Trump on notice that attacks on key figures in the case, like his former lawyer-turned-nemesis Michael Cohen or porn star Stormy Daniels, won\u2019t be tolerated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A violation could result in Trump being held in contempt of court, fined or even jailed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI want to thank Judge Merchan for imposing the gag order as I have been under relentless assault from Donald\u2019s MAGA supporters,\u201d said Cohen, a key prosecution witness against Trump. \u201cNevertheless, knowing Donald as well as I do, he will seek to defy the gag order by employing others within his circle to do his bidding, regardless of consequence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Blanche declined to comment. Bragg\u2019s office also declined to comment. A message seeking comment was left for Trump\u2019s presidential campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gag order adds to existing restrictions that prohibit Trump from using evidence in the case to attack witnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s hush-money case centers on allegations that he falsely logged payments to Cohen, then his personal lawyer, as legal fees in his company\u2019s books when they were for his work during the 2016 campaign covering up negative stories about Trump. That included $130,000 he had paid Daniels on Trump\u2019s behalf so she wouldn\u2019t publicize her claim of a sexual encounter with him years earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump pleaded not guilty last April to 34 counts of falsifying business records<\/u><\/a>, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in jail time. He denies having sex with Daniels and his lawyers have said that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses, not part of any coverup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At his arraignment, Merchan admonished Trump not to make statements that could incite violence or jeopardize safety, but stopped short of muzzling him. At a subsequent hearing, Merchan noted Trump\u2019s \u201cspecial\u201d status as a former president and current candidate and said, \u201cI\u2019m bending over backwards and straining to make sure that he is given every opportunity possible to advance his candidacy and to be able to speak in furtherance of his candidacy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As jury selection nears, Merchan has been increasingly wary of Trump\u2019s rhetoric disrupting the historic trial. Earlier this month, Merchan ruled to keep the names of jurors from the public. Trump will have access to them, but he risks forfeiting access if he discloses the names publicly or engages in harassing or disruptive conduct that threatens the safety or integrity of jurors, the judge said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, with the gag order, Merchan is declaring scores of people involved in the case off-limits for Trump\u2019s social media venom, courthouse diatribes and campaign rallies. Trump\u2019s grousing to TV cameras as he entered and exited the courtroom became ritual during his New York civil fraud trial last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After leaving Monday\u2019s hearing where Merchan set the trial date, Trump tore into prosecutor Matthew Colangelo at a press conference, referring to the ex-Justice Department official as a \u201cradical left from DOJ\u201d sent to run the Trump case \u201cby Biden and his thugs.\u201d The judge cited those remarks in his ruling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has repeatedly lashed out about the hush-money case. He warned on social media of \u201cpotential death & destruction\u201d<\/u><\/a> before his indictment last year and posting a photo on social media of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of Bragg. He has referred to Cohen as a \u201cconvicted felon, disbarred lawyer, with zero credibility\u201d and has used a mocking nickname to describe Daniels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merchan is just the latest judge to put guardrails around Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A federal appeals court panel in December largely upheld Trump\u2019s gag order in his Washington, D.C., election interference case but narrowed it by freeing him to criticize special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the case. The New York gag order echoed that ruling by excluding Bragg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the fraud trial, Trump was fined $15,000 for twice violating a gag order imposed after he made a disparaging social media post about the judge\u2019s chief law clerk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In January, a federal judge threatened Trump with expulsion from court in a civil trial on writer E. Jean Carroll\u2019s defamation claims against him after he was heard saying \u201cit is a witch hunt\u201d and \u201cit really is a con job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 A New York judge Tuesday issued a gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial, citing the former president\u2019s history of \u201cthreatening, inflammatory, denigrating\u201d remarks about people involved in his legal cases. Judge Juan M. Merchan\u2019s decision, echoing a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":25393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3480,27468,1700,9050,6183],"class_list":["post-25392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-donald-trump","tag-hush-money-case","tag-judge","tag-restraining-order","tag-witness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25394,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25392\/revisions\/25394"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}