Former President Trump’s judge has rejected the former president’s request to restrict his gag order so he can speak publicly about porn actress Stormy Daniels now that she has completed her testimony in Trump’s ongoing criminal trial.
Trump’s gag order limits his attacks on witnesses, among others, forcing the former president to stop attacking some of his frequent targets on social media or risk prison time.
On Thursday afternoon, hours after Daniels was dismissed, Trump lawyer Todd Blanche argued that the witness had changed his version of events, referencing the defense’s lines of attack during cross-examination.
“He needs an opportunity to respond to the American people, and the reason for the gag order is over. She is no longer a witness,” Blanche said.
Merchan denied the court’s motion, maintaining restrictions that prevent Trump from criticizing the adult film star, one of prosecutors’ most high-profile witnesses.
“That’s not the record,” Merchan said. “The reason the gag order is in place is precisely because of the nature of these attacks – the vitriol.”
The gag order prohibits Trump from hurling insults at witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, court staff or the judge’s family. That doesn’t stop Trump from attacking the judge himself or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D).
Bragg’s office opposed Trump’s request. Prosecutor Chris Conroy said the defense lived in an “alternative reality.”
“There is no other side out there, there is a process that this order is meant to protect,” Conroy said.
The former president and his legal team have argued that the restrictions violate Trump’s First Amendment rights, underscoring the need to respond to political attacks while noting the former president’s status as the presumptive Republican nominee.
“This judge took away my constitutional right to freedom of expression. I am the only presidential candidate in history to be gagged. They don’t want me to talk,” Trump said in a video posted to Truth Social that appears to have been filmed at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday.
During two days in court this week, the porn actress, in her long-awaited deposition, recounted allegations that she had sex with Trump at a 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, which Trump denies.
Ella Lee and Lauren Sforza contributed.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
