Prosecutors push judge in Trump hush money case to include relatives in gag order – New York Daily News
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The judge presiding over the Stormy Daniels hush money case on Monday expanded a gag order to prohibit Donald Trump from personally attacking the jurist’s family members or those of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg in a remarkable ruling after prosecutors called out the former president’s “dangerous, violent, and reprehensible” rhetoric.
State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan amended the order he issued last week — that limited Trump’s public remarks about people connected to his criminal case in Manhattan — after Trump targeted the judge’s daughter, Loren, on Truth Social multiple times over several days. Trump was boosting a hoax that she’d been trashing him online and was profiting from her dad’s rulings at a digital agency that works on campaigns for Democrats.
The order initially barred Trump from publicly commenting on witnesses and potential witnesses, jurors and potential jurors, prosecutorial staff and their relatives, along with court staff and their families — but not the judge, DA and their relatives.
Merchan said he had tailored it to protect Trump’s “constitutional right to speak to the American voters freely, and to defend himself publicly,” but disagreed with his lawyers that the attacks on his daughter in the ensuing days represented political speech on “matters of great public concern.”
Trump’s “pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose. It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings, that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’ for Defendant’s vitriol,” Merchan wrote.
“It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings. The threat is very real. The average observer must now, after hearing defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should worry not only for themselves, but for their loved ones as well.”
Trump’s lawyers had vehemently opposed including the DA and Merchan’s relatives in the gag order. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s legal team said his attacks on the judge’s daughter represented “campaign advocacy on issues that bear on his candidacy” and criticism of the judge for not recusing himself because of his daughter’s job. They said they planned to file a new motion seeking Merchan’s recusal. Their last effort failed.
Merchan described the arguments by Trump’s lawyers “desperately” attempting to justify his inflammatory rhetoric as “at best strained and at worst baseless” and reliant on innuendo and exaggeration.
“Put mildly, the assortment of allegations presented as ‘facts’ and cobbled together, result in accusations that are disingenuous and not rational. To argue that the most recent attacks, which included photographs, were ‘necessary and appropriate in the current environment,’ is farcical,” the judge wrote.
Merchan’s scathing evening decision came after prosecutors pushed him to make it clear the gag order applied to the DA and the judge’s families, with Assistant District Attorney Matthew Colangelo citing Trump’s recent “dangerous, violent and reprehensible rhetoric.”
The judge said prosecutors had presented a “plethora” of evidence supporting their arguments that Trump’s conduct was deliberate and intended to intimidate him and delay the trial. He granted the prosecution’s outstanding request to warn Trump that his right to know jurors’ identities would be forfeited if he engaged in further harassing or disruptive misconduct.
Merchan said the “singular power [Trump’s] words have on countless others” meant the conventional “David vs. Goliath” roles typically seen when a defendant battles an indictment in the public eye could not be applied in Trump’s case.
“[All] citizens, called upon to participate in these proceedings, whether as a juror, a witness, or in some other capacity, must now concern themselves not only with their own personal safety, but with the safety and the potential for personal attacks upon their loved ones. That reality cannot be overstated.”
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsification of business records in the case alleging he concealed reimbursement to Michael Cohen in 2017 to disguise payments made to Daniels and a Playboy model to buy their silence about alleged sexual trysts.
The decision came down as Trump made a $175 million bond in his separate civil fraud case. That means his assets are safe from possible seizures, as he appeals Judge Arthur Engoron’s February ruling, which found him and his top Trump Organization executives liable for large-scale fraud.
The targets of Trump’s online diatribes connected to his New York cases have been subjected to a torrent of abuse and threats since he was first indicted. Bomb squads have been called to the courthouses by Foley Square more than once.
Bragg and his office were inundated with as many as 600 threatening emails and calls a day in March 2023 amid his indictment in the hush money case. The office has dealt with two bogus white powder threats.
In Trump’s civil fraud case, both Engoron and his chief law clerk were targeted with death threats and dozens of harassing and antisemitic calls and emails a day after the trial started in October.
Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, and a spokeswoman for Bragg declined comment.
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