Donald Trump asks New York high court to intervene in fight over gag order in silent trial

NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump is trying to get New York’s highest court to intervene in his fight over a gag order that saw him fined $10,000 and threatened with prison for violating a ban on commenting on witnesses , jurors and others linked to their silence. criminal trial for money.

The former president’s lawyers filed an appeal on Wednesday, a day after the state’s mid-level appeals court denied their request to lift or modify the restrictions. The case was listed in a court filing, but the document itself was sealed and unavailable.

Trump presidential campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said it is a request for the state Court of Appeals to handle the matter.

“President Trump has filed notice to appeal the unconstitutional and un-American gag order imposed by embattled Judge Juan Merchan in the Manhattan District Attorney’s illegal case,” Cheung said in a statement.

“The threat to arrest the 45th President of the United States and the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election for exercising his First Amendment rights is a Third World authoritarian tactic typical of the corrupt Joe Biden and his cronies,” Cheung said.

A five-judge panel of the state’s mid-level appellate court, the Appellate Division of the state’s top court, ruled Tuesday that Merchan “adequately determined” that Trump’s public statements “posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses”. in this case too.”

Trump asked the state’s intermediate appeals court to lift or modify the gag order. Among other restrictions, it prohibits him from making or instructing others to make statements about witnesses like his intermediary-turned-enemy Michael Cohen, who will testify for a third day on Thursday. It also prohibits comments about court staff, the judge’s family and prosecutors other than Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Bragg’s office declined to comment. A message seeking comment was left with a spokesperson for the state court system.

“The gag order has to be lifted,” Trump told reporters as he addressed the court on Tuesday. He later lamented, “As you know, I’m under a gag order, so I can’t answer these very simple questions that you’re asking me.

Trump was noticeably more cautious in his comments after Merchan found him in contempt of court and fined him a total of $10,000 for violating the gag order 10 times in recent weeks. The judge told Trump last week that future violations of the gag order could send him to prison.

Among the violations were Trump’s multiple attacks on Cohen, including an April 13 social media post asking: “Was disgraced lawyer and criminal Michael Cohen prosecuted for LYING? Only TRUMP people are prosecuted by this judge and these thugs!

Merchan also flagged Trump’s reposts of a New York Post article that described Cohen as a “serial perjurer,” and a post by Trump citing Fox News host Jesse Watters’ claim that liberal activists were lying to help protect themselves. infiltrate the jury.

Merchan’s arrest notice came after he ruled that Trump had last violated the gag order when, in an April 22 interview with Real America’s Voice, he criticized the speed with which the jury was chosen and claimed, without evidence, that he was stacked with Democrats.

Merchan issued the gag order on March 26 after prosecutors raised concerns about Trump’s propensity to attack people involved in his cases. He expanded the measure on April 1 to ban comments about his own family after Trump attacked the judge’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant, on social media and made false claims about her.

Trump appealed the gag order on April 8, just days before jury selection began. In an emergency hearing before a single judge in the Appellate Division, Trump’s lawyers argued that the order was an unconstitutional restriction on the Republican presidential candidate’s free speech rights as he campaigns and fights criminal charges.

Specifically, according to court documents, Trump defied restrictions on his ability to comment on Matthew Colangelo, a former Justice Department official who is part of the prosecution team, and Merchan’s daughter, whose firm worked for rival from Trump, President Joe Biden, and other Democrats.

In its Tuesday ruling, the Appellate Division noted that Trump was not claiming that the gag order had infringed on his right to a fair trial. Instead, Trump’s lawyers argued that prohibiting him from commenting on Colangelo and Loren Merchan restricted his ability to engage in protected political speech and could negatively affect his campaign.

The appeals court ruled that Judge Merchan “adequately weighed” Trump’s free speech rights against Trump’s “historic commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the rights of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings of be free from threats, intimidation, harassment and harm.”