NEW YORK \u2014 The prosecutor in Donald Trump\u2019s upcoming hush money trial has asked the judge to clarify whether a gag order issued for the former president this week bars him from publicly attacking the judge\u2019s adult daughter \u2014 and to expand the order if it doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg made the request after social media posts by Trump attacking the daughter of New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan for her professional affiliations with Democratic candidates and politicians.<\/p>\n
As Trump\u2019s April 15 trial date nears, he and his advocates insist Merchan is influenced by his daughter\u2019s job and her ties to Democrats.<\/p>\n
Bragg\u2019s office wrote in a letter filed Thursday and unsealed Friday that in light of the attacks, the judge \u201cshould make abundantly clear that the [gag order] protects family members of the Court, the District Attorney, and all other individuals mentioned in the Order.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also said that Merchan should \u201cwarn [Trump] that his recent conduct is contumacious and direct him to immediately desist\u201d and that ignoring the warning should warrant sanctions.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, Merchan barred Trump, the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential nominee, from discussing trial witnesses, prosecutors and others involved in the case, saying that his record of \u201cprior extrajudicial statements establishes a sufficient risk to the administration of justice.\u201d<\/p>\n
Trump attorneys have repeatedly argued that any limitation on his speech is a clear violation of his First Amendment rights and his rights as a presidential candidate.<\/p>\n
In a letter Friday responding to Bragg\u2019s request, defense lawyers Susan Necheles and Todd Blanche said Merchan\u2019s gag order does not apply to comments about the judge\u2019s family members and Trump\u2019s recent posts had not violated the order.<\/p>\n
Merchan can\u2019t order Trump \u201cto do something that the gag order does not require,\u201d the lawyers wrote, adding that they would be entitled to a hearing if the judge is inclined to broaden the order.<\/p>\n
Trump has been partially gagged in other cases, including his federal election-interference indictment in Washington D.C. and a civil fraud case overseen by another New York judge, Arthur Engoron, whose law clerk and staff received a flood of threats and harassing messages after Trump posted a photo and false information about the clerk online.<\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s trial in front of Merchan is expected to span roughly two months and will be the first criminal trial of a former U.S. president. He is charged with falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment during the 2016 presidential race to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have had a sexual liaison with Trump years earlier.<\/p>\n
The former president has three other pending indictments \u2014 the D.C. election-obstruction case, a state-level election obstruction case in Georgia and a federal case in Florida that accuses him of improperly retaining classified documents and obstructing government efforts to retrieve them.<\/p>\n
Trump has pleaded not guilty to all 88 counts he faces.<\/p>\n
Merchan\u2019s daughter was previously cited by Trump\u2019s lawyers as an issue in the hush money case, when they argued that Merchan should recuse himself because of her ties to Democratic campaigns and because the judge appeared to have donated $15 to President Biden in 2020 and made two $10 contributions to Democratic-aligned organizations.<\/p>\n
In a statement Friday, Richard Lewis, who heads the New York State Bar Association, decried Trump\u2019s recent rhetoric, saying \u201cwe must condemn in no uncertain terms the unfounded attack on Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan and his family.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAll judges must be free to decide cases and issue rulings without fear for their safety or that of their family,\u201d Lewis added. \u201cWhile they cannot speak out to protect themselves, we can, and we will. Our system of justice depends on it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
NEW YORK \u2014 The prosecutor in Donald Trump\u2019s upcoming hush money trial has asked the judge to clarify whether a gag order issued for the former president this week bars him from publicly attacking the judge\u2019s adult daughter \u2014 and to expand the order if it doesn\u2019t. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg made the request […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2584,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2583\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}