Catherine Rusoff
Former President 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 other people connected to your silence criminal trial money.
The former president’s lawyers filed an appeal on Wednesday, a day after the state’s mid-level appeals court refused your request lift or modify 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 lower court Appellate Division ruled on Tuesday that Merchan “adequately determined” that Trump’s public statements “posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony from witnesses and potential witnesses in this case as well.”
“We conclude that Judge Merchan adequately weighed the petitioner’s First Amendment rights against the court’s historic commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal process to be free from threats , intimidation, harassment and harm,” the ruling said.
Merchan has found Trump in contempt of court for violating the order 10 times, with a $1,000 fine for each violation. Last week, he warned Trump that he could be arrested for future violations.
Craig Ruttle/Getty Images
The latest violation concerned comments made by Trump about the political composition of the jury. In a May 6 written order, Merchan said Trump’s comments “not only call into question the integrity and therefore the legitimacy of these proceedings, but again raise the specter of fear for the safety of the jurors and their loved ones.”
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 gag order, so I can’t answer the very simple questions you’re asking me.”
Among the violations were Trump’s multiple attacks on Cohen, including an April 13 social media post asking: “Disgraced lawyer and criminal Michael Cohen was 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.”
