Former President Donald Trump is seeking New York's highest court to intervene in his fight over a gag order that has seen him fined $10,000 and threatened with jail time for violating a ban on commenting on witnesses, jurors and others people related to him. silence criminal trial.
Lawyers for the former president filed a notice of appeal on Wednesday, a day after the state's mid-level appeals court. refused his request to lift or modify the restrictions. The file was in a court file, but the document itself was sealed and unavailable.
Trump's presidential campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said it's a request for the state Court of Appeals to take up the matter.
“President Trump has filed a notice to appeal the unconstitutional and un-American gag order imposed by embattled Judge Juan Merchan in the Manhattan DA lawless case,” Cheung said in a statement.
“Threatening to throw the 45th President of the United States and the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election in jail for exercising his First Amendment rights is a typical Third World authoritarian tactic of Crooked Joe Biden and his cronies Cheung said.
A five-judge panel of the mid-level appeals court, the Appellate Division of the state's trial court, ruled Tuesday that Merchan “correctly determined” that Trump's public statements ” posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses.” also in this case”.
“We believe Judge Merchan properly weighed petitioner's First Amendment rights against the court's historic commitment to ensure the fair administration of justice in criminal cases and the right of persons connected or tangentially connected to criminal proceedings to be free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm,” the ruling said.
Merchan has convicted Trump of contempt of court for violating the order 10 times, with a fine of $1,000 for each violation. Last week, he warned Trump that he could be sent to prison for future violations.
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The latest violation concerns comments Trump made about the political makeup of the jury. In a May 6 written order, Merchan said Trump's comments “not only called into question the integrity, and therefore the legitimacy, of these proceedings, but once again raised the specter of fear for the safety of jurors and their loved ones.”
Trump had asked the state's intermediate appeals court to lift or modify the gag order. Among other restrictions, he is barred from making or directing others to give statements about witnesses such as his fixer-turned-foe Michael Cohen, who will testify for the 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 comment. A message was left for comment with a spokesman for the state court system.
“The gag order has to go,” Trump told reporters as he headed to court Tuesday. Later, he lamented, “As you know, I'm under a gag order, so I can't answer these simple questions you're asking me.”
Among the violations were Trump's various attacks on Cohen, including an April 13 social media post that asked: “Has disgraced lawyer and criminal Michael Cohen been prosecuted for LYING? Only TRUMP's people she is prosecuted by this judge and these thugs!”
Merchan also flagged Trump's postings of a New York Post article describing Cohen as a “serial perjurer” and a Trump post quoting Fox News host Jesse Watters' claim that liberal activists lied to infiltrate the jury.
Merchan's prison warning came after he ruled that Trump had violated the gag order for the last time when, in an April 22 interview with the Real America's Voice television channel, he criticized the speed with that the jury was chosen and claimed, without evidence, that it was stacked. with the Democrats.
Merchan issued the gag order on March 26 after prosecutors raised concerns about Trump's propensity to attack people involved in their cases. He expanded it 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 of the Appellate Division, Trump's lawyers argued that the order was an unconstitutional curb on the Republican presidential nominee's free speech rights while campaigning and fight criminal charges.
Specifically, according to court documents, Trump challenged restrictions on his ability to comment on Matthew Colangelo, a former Justice Department official who is part of the prosecution team, and the daughter of Merchan, the company's which has worked for Trump's rival, President Joe Biden, and other Democrats.
In its ruling Tuesday, the Appellate Division noted that Trump did not claim the gag order violated his right to a fair trial. Rather, Trump's lawyers argued that barring 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 “properly weighed” Trump's free speech rights against “the historic commitment to ensure the fair administration of justice in criminal cases and the right of individuals related or tangentially related to the criminal process to be free of threats”. intimidation, harassment and harm”.
