Trump gag order partly lifted in hush money case ahead of first presidential debate
The judge who presided over Donald Trump‘s hush money trial lifted some of the restrictions from his gag order Tuesday.
New York state Judge Juan Merchan ruled two days before Trump is set to debate President Joe Biden for the first time in the 2024 campaign.
Merchan’s ruling lifted restrictions on Trump’s ability to comment on the witnesses who testified against him during his trial, as well as a part of the order barring him from discussing the jury that convicted him — essentially finding the witnesses’ and the jury’s work had concluded, so there was no fear of affecting the proceedings. The ruling preserved a part of the order barring Trump from going after court staff members, individual prosecutors and “family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney.”
That would include Merchan’s daughter, whom Trump repeatedly ripped in the lead-up to the trial because she works for a firm that Democrats, including Vice President Kamala Harris, used for digital fundraising. “Maybe the Judge is such a hater because his daughter makes money by working to ‘Get Trump,’” he wrote in a social media post.
Merchan then expanded his gag order to include his daughter and another subject of Trump’s attacks, the wife of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. Neither Merchan nor Bragg were covered by the gag order.
Trump’s “pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose. It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’ for Defendant’s vitriol,” Merchan said in his April 1 ruling.
The ruling Tuesday said those restrictions would remain in place until Trump’s sentencing on July 11, because “the people covered by that clause must continue to perform their lawful duties free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung blasted Merchan for leaving those restrictions in place, saying they’re “preventing President Trump from speaking freely about Judge Merchan’s disqualifying conflicts and the overwhelming evidence exposing this whole Crooked Joe Biden — directed Witch Hunt. This is another unlawful decision by a highly conflicted judge, which is blatantly un-American.”
He said Trump’s legal team would “immediately challenge” the “unconstitutional order.”
Trump was fined $10,000 for repeated violations of the gag order during the trial, the bulk of which targeted his former lawyer Michael Cohen, a key witness for prosecutors.
Cohen shrugged off the ruling in a statement. “For the past 6 years, Donald and acolytes have been making constant negative statements about me. Donald’s failed strategy of discrediting me so that he can avoid accountability didn’t work then and won’t work now,” Cohen said.
While the ruling now allows Trump to mention the jury broadly, he is still prevented from talking about jurors by name or divulging their personal information under the terms of a separate protective order that is still in place. He was fined during the trial for comments in an interview that the jury was “picked so fast” and was “95% Democrats”
Trump was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records related to money he paid Cohen to reimburse him for a hush money payment Cohen paid to adult film star Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 campaign. Daniels testified she had a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006, which he has denied.
Trump had pleaded not guilty in the criminal case, and his attorneys have said he plans to appeal the conviction.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com