MANHATTAN (CN) — The New York judge assigned to Donald Trump’s hush-money trial issued a gag order against the former president on Tuesday, barring him from making “extrajudicial statements” against potential witnesses and others involved in the criminal case.
In his four-page order, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan precluded Trump from “making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses,” as well as “any prospective juror or any juror” in the proceeding.
Trump has repeatedly used social media to attack his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen, who is expected to be a key witness for prosecutors come trial in April. Prosecutors claim Trump directed Cohen to pay off adult film star Stormy Daniels to cover up an extramarital affair ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
With Tuesday’s order, Trump likely will have to lay off those barrages.
More recently, Trump lashed out at the judge’s daughter in a series of Truth Social posts claiming her job at a political public relations firm compromises her father’s impartiality.
That rhetoric, however, may not be restricted by the Tuesday order, which bars statements about “counsel in the case other than the district attorney, members of the court’s staff and the district attorney’s staff, or the family members of any counsel or staff member.”
Merchan didn't address statements against himself or his own family in the ruling.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the case against Trump last year for falsifying business records related to the supposed hush-money, asked the court for a limited gag order last month.
“Defendant has a long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers and court staff,” Bragg said.
Merchan agreed, finding several of Trump’s statements over the past several months to be “threatening, inflammatory” and “denigrating.”
“The consequences of those statements included not only fear on the part of the individual targeted, but also the assignment of increased security resources to investigate threats and protect the individuals and family members thereof,” Merchan added.
Trump is no stranger to being gagged in court. The judge in his civil fraud trial instituted a similar order during those proceedings last year after Trump repeatedly attacked the judge’s chief law clerk online and to the press.
But unlike that order, this latest one from Merchan is aimed at Trump specifically, rather than at all parties in the case.
It was one of several rulings by Merchan against Trump on Tuesday. In another, Merchan axed Trump’s request to forgo having to ask for permission prior to filing a motion in the criminal case.
Trump claimed earlier this month that the requirement violated his Sixth Amendment right to a fair trial. Merchan found that argument to be without merit. “The order does not deny either party the right to file any motion provided that a pre-motion letter is filed first,” Merchan wrote. “This aspect of defendant’s argument is not persuasive.”
Merchan instituted the rule on March 8, after Trump had moved for a trial adjournment pending an unrelated U.S. Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity.
“The court’s measure was indeed intended to assist with the management of its docket as well as to efficiently manage the case at bar,” Merchan added on Tuesday.
Late motions, like Trump’s presidential immunity claim, could serve to further delay the already-pushed criminal trial. Merchan acknowledged Trump’s repeated efforts to set the proceedings back, and his order speaks to the judge’s intentions to keep things moving.
“Defendant, either directly or through counsel, has repeatedly stated publicly that the defense goal is to delay these proceedings, if possible, past the 2024 presidential election,” Merchan said.
Trump’s latest request to delay the trial came to a tee during a Monday court hearing, in which he argued that Bragg violated discovery rules after receiving a late batch of evidence from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan.
Todd Blanche, Trump’s attorney, argued that the evidence contained information that Bragg was required to share with the defense earlier in the case. But the judge disagreed, chiding Blanche for making “unbelievably serious” allegations without any proof.
“You’re literally accusing the Manhattan DA's Office and the people assigned to this case of engaging in prosecutorial misconduct and of trying to make me complacent in it,” Merchan said Monday. “And you don't have a single cite to support that position?”
Merchan, after already granting a 30-day delay to hear the discovery arguments, denied Trump’s bid to push the trial back any further. He scheduled jury selection to begin April 15.
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