NEW YORK (AP) — The ruling in Donald Trump’s secret trial on April 15 said Monday that his circle of family members beyond the former president’s resentment, expanding the gag order days after Trump assaulted his daughter and made false statements about her on social media.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan replaced a week-long ban that barred Trump from making public statements about witnesses, jurors and others connected to the case after the presumptive Republican nominee lashed out at Loren Merchan, a Democratic political consultant, in several articles on his Social Truth Platform.
Trump still can’t criticize Merchan and another key figure in the case, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat who is leading the silence charge. But under the revised gag order, the prosecutor’s circle of relatives is now also barred from accessing his rhetoric.
“This tendency to attack the relatives of the jurists and lawyers who preside over their instances has no valid purpose,” Merchán wrote. “This only instills concern in those summoned or called to participate in the process, since not only they, but also members of their family circle, are ‘righteous targets’ for the vitriol of the accused. “
– MSNBC (@MSNBC) April 2, 2024
A violation can simply result in a contempt of court conviction, a fine, or even imprisonment.
Trump’s lawyer, Susan Necheles, declined to comment. A spokesman for the prosecutor’s office also declined to comment.
Trump’s hush money case, one of four criminal cases opposed to him, centers on allegations that he falsely logged invoices to his former lawyer Michael Cohen as legal fees when they were intended for Cohen’s jobs to cover up negative stories about Trump during the 2016 campaign. It includes $130,000 Cohen paid porn actress Stormy Daniels on Trump’s behalf to keep her claim that she had sex with him years earlier.
Trump pleaded not guilty last April to 34 counts of falsifying business records, a crime punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction will result in prison. Lawyers have said the bills to Cohen were valid legal fees and were not part of any cover-up.
Trump sparked a firestorm last Wednesday, the day after the initial gag order was issued, when he informed Truth Social, without evidence, that Merchan’s decisions were influenced by his daughter’s political consulting interests and falsely claimed that she had posted a photo on social media. The media presents him as bars.
Trump complained that the judgment rendered by his Democratic rivals about “wrongly attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment right to speak out against the militarization of law enforcement” and that Loren Merchan “makes money by running to ‘get Trump. ‘””
Trump’s posts put Merchan in a normal position as judge and father. Just two weeks before the jury convened in the first historic felon trial of a former president, Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors argued in a series of court instances over the limits of the original trial. order of silence and whether Trump had exceeded them.
“It is no longer a mere option or a moderate probability that there is a risk to the integrity of the judicial process,” Mercan concluded on Monday. “The risk is very real. Protest is enough, but moderation is also enough. “
Merchan responded after prosecutors asked her on Friday to “clarify or confirm” the scope of the gag order and order Trump to “immediately stop attacking members of his family circle. “
Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass implored Merchan to “make clear” to Trump that the gag order protects the judge’s family members, Bragg’s family members, and the family members of everyone else it covers. He suggested that Merchan warn Trump “that his recent conduct is in absentia and I order him to desist immediately. “
Trump’s lawyers have fought the gag order and its extension, raising constitutional considerations about restricting Trump’s speech as he campaigns for president and battles allegations of criminality.
On Monday, they said they would soon ask Merchan to withdraw from the case, promising to file a case in court in the coming days to seek his recusal based on what they called a “change in cases and newly discovered evidence. “
Merchan rejected the defense’s requests to end the case last year when they first questioned her daughter’s consulting work and questioned $35 in donations she made to Democratic motives in the 2020 campaign, adding $15 to Biden.
Merchan said at the time that an ethics committee of a state court found that Loren Merchan’s paintings had nothing to do with his impartiality. He governed last September that he was confident in his “ability to be fair and impartial” and that Trump’s lawyers had “failed to demonstrate that there were concrete or even realistic reasons” for the recusal.
Trump’s initial gag order, issued last Tuesday, had barred him from making or directing others to make public statements on his behalf about jurors or witnesses in the secret trial, such as his lawyer-turned-enemy Michael Cohen and porn star Stormy Daniels.
The order, which echoes Trump’s fraudulent election interference case in Washington, D. C. , also prohibits any statements intended to interfere with or harass court staff, the prosecution team or their families. These bans still apply, as does the new ban on comments on Merchan and Bragg’s families.
Merchan, in expanding the gag order, also warned Trump that he would lose his right to see jurors’ names, which are otherwise hidden from the public, if he engages in conduct that threatens his protection or integrity.
“Once again, all citizens who are called upon to participate in this process, whether as a juror, witness or in any other capacity, will have to worry not only about their own personal safety, but also about themselves and the threat of private attacks on their person. My loved ones,” Merchan wrote.
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