Former President Trump asked New York’s highest court to intervene in his fight to overturn the gag order in his ongoing criminal trial, a day after a mid-level appeals court upheld it.
Trump’s lawyer filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday, but it remained sealed on the court docket as of Thursday morning.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told the Associated Press that the request is a request for the state Court of Appeals to adopt the gag order.
“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, AP reported.
“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 Crooked Joe Biden and his cronies,” Cheung added in the statement . .
The Hill reached out to Cheung for a statement.
On Tuesday, a New York appeals court upheld a gag order against Trump that prohibits him from publicly commenting on witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and the family of Judge Juan Merchan. That doesn’t stop the former president from attacking Merchan or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D).
“Judge Merchan correctly determined that the petitioner’s public statements posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses in this case as well,” the newspaper said Tuesday.decision of thereading by the panel of five judges.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records over an alleged reimbursement scheme to Michael Cohen, Trump’s then-fixer, who paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 before the 2016 election to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump. Trump denies the case, says there were no irregularities in the payments and declared himself innocent.
Trump has criticized her gag order as a violation of her First Amendment rights, arguing that it prevents her from responding to political attacks perpetrated by high-profile witnesses and others.
The former president’s lawyers lamented how Cohen regularly attacked Trump on social media and elsewhere ahead of his testimony, which began Monday, while Trump was prohibited from responding.
On Friday, Merchan instructed prosecutors to tell Cohen that he should make no further public statements about the case.
Merchan also found that Trump has violated his gag order 10 times since it was imposed, ordering him to pay a $1,000 fine per violation and warning that future violations could carry prison time.
Ella Lee and Zach Schonfeld contributed.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
