{"id":25480,"date":"2024-03-29T20:15:46","date_gmt":"2024-03-30T01:15:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=25480"},"modified":"2024-03-29T20:15:55","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T01:15:55","slug":"da-suggests-donald-trump-violated-gag-order-with-post-about-daughter-of-hush-money-trial-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=25480","title":{"rendered":"DA suggests Donald Trump violated gag order with post about daughter of hush-money trial judge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Manhattan prosecutors suggested Friday that Donald Trump violated a gag order in his hush-money criminal case<\/a> this week by assailing the judge\u2019s daughter and making a false claim about her on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office asked Judge Juan M. Merchan to \u201cclarify or confirm\u201d the scope of the gag order, which he issued Tuesday, and to direct the former president and presumptive Republican nominee to \u201cimmediately desist from attacks on family members.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter to Merchan, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass argued that the gag order\u2019s ban on statements meant to interfere with or harass the court\u2019s staff or their families makes the judge\u2019s daughter off-limits from Trump\u2019s rhetoric. He said Trump should be punished for further violations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump\u2019s lawyers contended the D.A.’s office is misinterpreting the order and said it doesn\u2019t prohibit him from commenting about Loren Merchan, a political consultant whose firm has worked on campaigns for Trump\u2019s rival. President Joe Biden, and other Democrats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Court cannot \u2018direct\u2019 President Trump to do something that the gag order does not require,\u201d Trump\u2019s lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles wrote to Merchan in a response to the prosecution\u2019s letter. \u201cTo \u2018clarify or confirm\u2019 the meaning of the gag order in the way the People suggest would be to expand it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trial, which involves allegations Trump falsified payment records in a scheme to cover up negative stories during his 2016 presidential campaign, is scheduled to begin April 15. Trump denies wrongdoing and has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his posts Wednesday on his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that Loren Merchan \u201cmakes money by working to \u2018Get Trump,\u2019\u201d and he wrongly accused her of posting a social media photo showing him behind bars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A spokesperson for New York\u2019s state court system said Trump\u2019s claim was false and that the social media account Trump was referencing no longer belonged to Loren Merchan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The account on X, formerly known as Twitter, \u201cis not linked to her email address, nor has she posted under that screenname since she deleted the account. Rather, it represents the reconstitution, last April, and manipulation of an account she long ago abandoned,\u201d court spokesperson Al Baker said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the same Truth Social posts, Trump complained that his gag order was \u201cillegal, un-American, unConstitutional.\u201d He said that Judge Merchan was \u201cwrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement\u201d by Democratic rivals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gag order, which prosecutors had requested, bars Trump from either making or directing other people to make public statements<\/a> on his behalf about jurors or potential witnesses in the hush-money trial, such as his lawyer turned nemesis Michael Cohen and porn star Stormy Daniels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The order, echoing one in Trump\u2019s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case, also prohibits any statements meant to interfere with or harass the court\u2019s staff, prosecution team or their families. Trump, however, is free to criticize Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the elected Democrat whose office is prosecuting Trump \u2014 but Steinglass wants his family off limits, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his letter, Steinglass implored the judge to \u201cmake abundantly clear\u201d to Trump that the gag order protects his family, Bragg\u2019s family and family members of all other individuals covered by the gag order. He urged Merchan to warn Trump \u201cthat his recent conduct is contumacious and direct him to immediately desist.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

Trump\u2019s lawyers argued against any such warnings, citing constitutional concerns about restricting Trump\u2019s speech further while he\u2019s campaigning for president and fighting criminal charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

They said that if prosecutors press the issue, they\u2019ll want to litigate it fully, adding a potential wrinkle to trial preparations with jury selection set to begin in a little over two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Manhattan prosecutors suggested Friday that Donald Trump violated a gag order in his hush-money criminal case this week by assailing the judge\u2019s daughter and making a false claim about her on social media. The Manhattan district attorney\u2019s office asked Judge Juan M. Merchan to \u201cclarify or confirm\u201d the scope of the gag order, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":25481,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3435,3480,4740,27528,26909,25973,1906,2856],"class_list":["post-25480","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-district-attorney","tag-donald-trump","tag-hush-money","tag-judges-daughter","tag-posts","tag-releases","tag-trial","tag-violation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25480","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=25480"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25480\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25482,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25480\/revisions\/25482"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25481"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25480"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25480"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25480"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}