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Judge Issues Trump Gag Order           03/27 06:18

   A New York judge Tuesday issued a gag order barring Donald Trump from 
commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his 
upcoming hush-money criminal trial, citing the former president's history of 
"threatening, inflammatory, denigrating" remarks about people involved in his 
legal cases.

   NEW YORK (AP) -- A New York judge Tuesday issued a gag order barring Donald 
Trump from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and 
jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial, citing the former president's 
history of "threatening, inflammatory, denigrating" remarks about people 
involved in his legal cases.

   Judge Juan M. Merchan's decision, echoing a gag order in Trump's Washington, 
D.C., election interference criminal case, came a day after he rejected the 
defense's push to delay the Manhattan trial until summer and ordered it to 
begin April 15. If the date holds, it will be the first criminal trial of a 
former president.

   "Given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the 
imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount," Merchan wrote in a four-page 
decision granting the prosecution's request for what it deemed a "narrowly 
tailored" gag order.

   The judge said the presumptive Republican presidential nominee's statements 
have induced fear and necessitated added security measures to protect his 
targets and investigate threats.

   Trump's lawyers fought a gag order, warning it would amount to 
unconstitutional and unlawful prior restraint on his free speech rights. 
Merchan, who had long resisted imposing a gag order, said his obligation to 
ensuring the integrity of the trial outweighed First Amendment concerns.

   "President Trump's political opponents have, and will continue to, attack 
him based on this case," Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles said in 
a recent court filing. "The voters have the right to listen to President 
Trump's unfettered responses to those attacks -- not just one side of that 
debate."

   The gag order bars Trump from either making or directing other people to 
make public statements on his behalf about potential witnesses and jurors in 
the hush-money trial. It also prohibits any statements meant to interfere with 
or harass the court's staff, prosecution team or their families.

   It does not bar comments about Merchan, whom Trump has referred to after his 
arraignment last year as "a Trump-hating judge" with a family full of "Trump 
haters," or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat. But 
it puts Trump on notice that attacks on key figures in the case, like his 
former lawyer-turned-nemesis Michael Cohen or porn star Stormy Daniels, won't 
be tolerated.

   A violation could result in Trump being held in contempt of court, fined or 
even jailed.

   "I want to thank Judge Merchan for imposing the gag order as I have been 
under relentless assault from Donald's MAGA supporters," said Cohen, a key 
prosecution witness against Trump. "Nevertheless, knowing Donald as well as I 
do, he will seek to defy the gag order by employing others within his circle to 
do his bidding, regardless of consequence."

   Blanche declined to comment. Bragg's office also declined to comment. A 
message seeking comment was left for Trump's presidential campaign.

   The gag order adds to existing restrictions that prohibit Trump from using 
evidence in the case to attack witnesses.

   Trump's hush-money case centers on allegations that he falsely logged 
payments to Cohen, then his personal lawyer, as legal fees in his company's 
books when they were for his work during the 2016 campaign covering up negative 
stories about Trump. That included $130,000 he had paid Daniels on Trump's 
behalf so she wouldn't publicize her claim of a sexual encounter with him years 
earlier.

   Trump pleaded not guilty last April to 34 counts of falsifying business 
records, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no 
guarantee that a conviction would result in jail time. He denies having sex 
with Daniels and his lawyers have said that the payments to Cohen were 
legitimate legal expenses, not part of any coverup.

   At his arraignment, Merchan admonished Trump not to make statements that 
could incite violence or jeopardize safety, but stopped short of muzzling him. 
At a subsequent hearing, Merchan noted Trump's "special" status as a former 
president and current candidate and said, "I'm bending over backwards and 
straining to make sure that he is given every opportunity possible to advance 
his candidacy and to be able to speak in furtherance of his candidacy."

   As jury selection nears, Merchan has been increasingly wary of Trump's 
rhetoric disrupting the historic trial. Earlier this month, Merchan ruled to 
keep the names of jurors from the public. Trump will have access to them, but 
he risks forfeiting access if he discloses the names publicly or engages in 
harassing or disruptive conduct that threatens the safety or integrity of 
jurors, the judge said.

   Now, with the gag order, Merchan is declaring scores of people involved in 
the case off-limits for Trump's social media venom, courthouse diatribes and 
campaign rallies. Trump's grousing to TV cameras as he entered and exited the 
courtroom became ritual during his New York civil fraud trial last year.

   After leaving Monday's hearing where Merchan set the trial date, Trump tore 
into prosecutor Matthew Colangelo at a press conference, referring to the 
ex-Justice Department official as a "radical left from DOJ" sent to run the 
Trump case "by Biden and his thugs." The judge cited those remarks in his 
ruling.

   Trump has repeatedly lashed out about the hush-money case. He warned on 
social media of "potential death & destruction" before his indictment last year 
and posting a photo on social media of himself holding a baseball bat next to a 
picture of Bragg. He has referred to Cohen as a "convicted felon, disbarred 
lawyer, with zero credibility" and has used a mocking nickname to describe 
Daniels.

   Merchan is just the latest judge to put guardrails around Trump.

   A federal appeals court panel in December largely upheld Trump's gag order 
in his Washington, D.C., election interference case but narrowed it by freeing 
him to criticize special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the case. The New York 
gag order echoed that ruling by excluding Bragg.

   At the fraud trial, Trump was fined $15,000 for twice violating a gag order 
imposed after he made a disparaging social media post about the judge's chief 
law clerk.

   In January, a federal judge threatened Trump with expulsion from court in a 
civil trial on writer E. Jean Carroll's defamation claims against him after he 
was heard saying "it is a witch hunt" and "it really is a con job."

 
 
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