Judge issues gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting on witnesses, others in hush money case.
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 hush-money 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 DOJ” 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.
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