NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan prosecutors instructed Friday that Donald Trump violated a gag order in his hush-money prison case this week by assailing the decide’s daughter and making a false declare about her on social media.
The Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace requested Choose Juan M. Merchan to “make clear or verify” the scope of the gag order, which he issued Tuesday, and to direct the previous president and presumptive Republican nominee to “instantly desist from assaults on relations.”
In a letter to Merchan, Assistant District Legal professional Joshua Steinglass argued that the gag order’s ban on statements meant to intervene with or harass the court docket’s workers or their households makes the decide’s daughter off-limits from Trump’s rhetoric. He mentioned Trump ought to be punished for additional violations.
Trump’s legal professionals contended the D.A.’s workplace is misinterpreting the order and mentioned it doesn’t prohibit him from commenting about Loren Merchan, a political marketing consultant whose agency has labored on campaigns for Trump’s rival. President Joe Biden, and different Democrats.
“The Courtroom can’t ‘direct’ President Trump to do one thing that the gag order doesn’t require,” Trump’s legal professionals Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles wrote to Merchan in a response to the prosecution’s letter. “To ‘make clear or verify’ the that means of the gag order in the way in which the Folks counsel can be to broaden it.”
The trial, which entails allegations Trump falsified cost information in a scheme to cowl up adverse tales throughout his 2016 presidential marketing campaign, is scheduled to start April 15. Trump denies wrongdoing and has pleaded not responsible to 34 counts of falsifying enterprise information.
In his posts Wednesday on his Fact Social platform, Trump wrote that Loren Merchan “makes cash by working to ‘Get Trump,’” and he wrongly accused her of posting a social media photograph exhibiting him behind bars.
A spokesperson for New York’s state court docket system mentioned Trump’s declare was false and that the social media account Trump was referencing now not belonged to Loren Merchan.
The account on X, previously often called Twitter, “shouldn’t be linked to her electronic mail tackle, nor has she posted below that screenname since she deleted the account. Slightly, it represents the reconstitution, final April, and manipulation of an account she way back deserted,” court docket spokesperson Al Baker mentioned.
In the identical Fact Social posts, Trump complained that his gag order was “unlawful, un-American, unConstitutional.” He mentioned that Choose Merchan was “wrongfully trying to deprive me of my First Modification Proper to talk out towards the Weaponization of Legislation Enforcement” by Democratic rivals.
The gag order, which prosecutors had requested, bars Trump from both making or directing different individuals to make public statements on his behalf about jurors or potential witnesses within the hush-money trial, akin to his lawyer turned nemesis Michael Cohen and porn star Stormy Daniels.
The order, echoing one in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference prison case, additionally prohibits any statements meant to intervene with or harass the court docket’s workers, prosecution workforce or their households. Trump, nevertheless, is free to criticize Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg, the elected Democrat whose workplace is prosecuting Trump — however Steinglass needs his household off limits, too.
In his letter, Steinglass implored the decide to “make abundantly clear” to Trump that the gag order protects his household, Bragg’s household and relations of all different people coated by the gag order. He urged Merchan to warn Trump “that his latest conduct is contumacious and direct him to right away desist.”
A gag order violation might lead to Trump being held in contempt of court docket, fined and even jailed.
Trump’s legal professionals argued towards any such warnings, citing constitutional considerations about proscribing Trump’s speech additional whereas he’s campaigning for president and preventing prison expenses.
They mentioned that if prosecutors press the problem, they’ll wish to litigate it totally, including a possible wrinkle to trial preparations with jury choice set to start in somewhat over two weeks.