D.A. suggests Trump violated gag order with post about daughter of hush-money trial judge
NEW YORK — Manhattan prosecutors suggested Friday that Donald Trump violated a gag order in his hush-money criminal case by assailing the judge’s daughter and making a false claim about her on social media.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office asked Judge Juan M. Merchan to “clarify or confirm” the scope of the gag order, which he issued Tuesday, and to direct the former president and presumptive Republican nominee to “immediately desist from attacks on family members.”
In a letter to Merchan that was made public Friday, Assistant Dist. Atty. Joshua Steinglass argued that the gag order’s ban on statements meant to interfere with or harass the court’s staff or their families makes the judge’s daughter off-limits from Trump’s rhetoric. He said Trump should be punished for further violations.
Trump’s lawyers contend that the district attorney’s office is misinterpreting the order and that it doesn’t prohibit their client from commenting about Loren Merchan, a political consultant whose firm has workedon campaigns for President Biden and other Democrats.
“The Court cannot ‘direct’ President Trump to do something that the gag order does not require,” Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles wrote. “To ‘clarify or confirm’ the meaning of the gag order in the way the People suggest would be to expand it.”
A New York judge, brushing aside defense attorneys’ arguments, sets an April 15 date for former President Trump’s hush money case.
The trial, which involves allegations that 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.
In posts Wednesday on his social media platform, Trump wrote that Loren Merchan “makes money by working to ‘Get Trump’” and wrongly accused her of posting a social media photo showing him behind bars.
A spokesperson for New York’s state court system said that Trump’s claim was false and that the social media account Trump was referencing no longer belongs to Loren Merchan.
The account on X “is not linked to her email address, nor has she posted under that screen name since she deleted the account. Rather, it represents the reconstitution, last April, and manipulation of an account she long ago abandoned,” court spokesperson Al Baker said.
Immigration enforcement has long been the domain of the federal government. Texas is trying to change that.
In the same posts, Trump complained that his gag order was “illegal, un-American, unConstitutional.” He said Judge Merchan was “wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement” by Democratic rivals.
The gag order, which prosecutors had requested, bars Trump from either making or directing other people to make public statements on his behalf about jurors or potential witnesses in the hush-money trial, such as porn actor Stormy Daniels.
The order, echoing one in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case, also prohibits statements meant to interfere with or harass the court’s staff and prosecution team or their families.
The Republican presidential candidate, however, is free to criticize Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg, the elected Democrat whose office is prosecuting him — but Steinglass wants Bragg’s family off-limits.
In his letter, Steinglass implored the judge to “make abundantly clear” to Trump that the gag order protects his family, Bragg’s family and family members of all individuals covered by the gag order. He urged Merchan to warn Trump “that his recent conduct is contumacious and direct him to immediately desist.”
A gag order violation could result in Trump being held in contempt of court, fined or even jailed.
Trump’s lawyers argued against such warnings, citing constitutional concerns about restricting his speech while he’s campaigning and fighting charges.
Sisak writes for the Associated Press.
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