Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg called on Monday for Donald Trump's gag order in his criminal "hush money" trial to be expanded, citing the former president's "dangerous" and continued social media attacks against Judge Juan Merchan's daughter.
The Context:
Resulting from an investigation conducted by Bragg's office, Trump is facing criminal charges in New York City stemming from allegations that he illegally falsified business records to conceal "hush money" payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels. The payments were made to keep Daniels quiet about an affair she had with the former president in 2006. Trump has denied that the affair ever happened and pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Merchan, who is overseeing the case, issued a gag order last week against Trump in response to his social media posts attacking himself and his daughter, Loren, who works in high-level Democratic political circles. The order precludes Trump from making public statements about prosecutors, potential witnesses, and jurors, as well as their families, to prevent them from possibly being intimidated or harassed. However, the gag order did not specifically ban the former president from attacking Merchan, Bragg or their families.
In the ensuing days, Trump has continued to attack Merchan and his daughter in posts to his social media platform, Truth Social.
What We Know:
Citing these continued posts, which he called "dangerous, violent, and reprehensible," Bragg in a filing from Monday called on Merchan to expand the gag order to explicitly include family of anyone involved with the court or to stress that the existing gag order already covers these individuals under threat of sanctions.
"To the extent that the original March 26 Order did not already prohibit this behavior, this Court can and should clarify or extend the Order to protect family members of the Court on the record described below, and should warn defendant that any future disregard of the Order will result in sanctions," the motion reads. "This Court should immediately make clear that defendant is prohibited from making or directing others to make public statements about family members of the Court, the District Attorney, and all other individuals mentioned in the Order."
Views:
In response to an inquiry from Newsweek on Monday afternoon, Trump's office provided a statement that did not address the gag order and continued to attack Merchan and his daughter.
"Judge Juan Merchan has a clear conflict, and him continuing to be involved in this Crooked Joe Biden - directed Witch Hunt is a complete violation of applicable rules, regulations, and ethics," the statement read. "Authentic Campaigns, and thus the judge's daughter, is actively making money from this sham attack against President Trump, rendering Judge Merchan conflicted out. The judge should do the right thing and immediately recuse himself in order to show the American people that the Democrats have not destroyed our justice system completely."
What's Next?
Trump's Manhattan criminal case is set to go to trial on April 15, making it the first of his four criminal cases to do so.
Update 4/1/24, 5:45 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
Update 4/1/24, 5:58 p.m. ET: This article has been updated with additional information.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
fairness meter
To Rate This Article
About the writer
Thomas Kika is a Newsweek weekend reporter based in upstate New York. His focus is reporting on crime and national ... Read more
