The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Judge issues gag order for Trump in Manhattan hush money case
The latest edict mirrors parts of one imposed in federal case in D.C.
NEW YORK — A New York judge issued a gag order Tuesday barring Donald Trump from making public statements about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hushmoney criminal trial.
Judge Juan M. Merchan cited the former president’s prior comments about him and others in the case, as well as a looming April 15 trial date, in granting a prosecution request for what it termed a “narrowly tailored” order barring Trump from making certain out-of-court statements.
“It is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” Merchan wrote.
Prosecutors had asked for the gag order, citing what they called Trump’s “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks” about people involved in his legal cases.
The gag order does not bar comments about Merchan or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat. But it prohibits Trump from attacking key figures in the case, like his former lawyer-turned-nemesis Michael Cohen or porn star Stormy Daniels.
The prosecutors’ office declined to comment. Messages seeking comment were left for Trump’ s campaign.
The gag order adds to restrictions put in place after Trump’s arraignment last April that prohibit him from using evidence in the case to attack witnesses.
After a hearing Monday where Merchan set the April 15 trial date, Trump tore into prosecutor Matthew Colangelo on social media, referring to the former Justice Department official as a “radical left from DO J” sent to the D.A.’s office “to run the trial against Trump and that was done by Biden and his thugs.”
Merchan cited that comment in his ruling.
The Manhattan case centers on allegations that Trump falsified internal records kept by his company to hide the true nature of payments made to Cohen. The lawyer paid Daniels $130,000 as part of an effort during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to bury claims he’d had extramarital sexual encounters.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in jail time.
Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, has repeatedly lashed out about the case on social media, warning of “potential death & destruction” before his indictment last year, posting a photo on social media of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of Bragg and complaining that Merchan is “a Trump-hating judge” with a family full of “Trump haters.”
Trump was already under a similar gag order in his Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case and was fined $15,000 for twice violating a gag order imposed in his New York civil fraud trial after he made a disparaging social media post about the judge’s chief law clerk.