Judge in Trump’s Hush Money Case Slaps Him With Gag Order
The gag order doesn’t cover Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.
Judge Juan Merchan placed a gag order on former President Donald Trump, banning him from attacking jurors, potential witnesses, and court staff.
The hush money case stems from Trump allegedly paying off porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump can still go after Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.
- Making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation or in this criminal proceeding;
- Making or directing others to make public statements about (1) counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, (2) members of the court’s staff and the District Attorney’s staff, or (3) the family members of any counsel or staff member, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or to cause others to materially interfere with, counsel’s or staff’s work in this criminal case, or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to result; and
- Making or directing others to make public statements about any prospective juror or any juror in this criminal proceeding.
Jury selection begins on April 15. Merchan delayed the trial after the defense received thousands of pages of potential evidence.
Merchan chose not to delay it more but gave the defense a chance “to file a motion seeking to delay the trial based on pre-trial publicity concerns.”
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has one week to respond.
A Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
DA Alvin Bragg inherited the case when he came into office in 2022 but suspended it. Then, he brought it back when Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign.
Supposedly, Trump paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair. His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, said he set it up and paid it out of his pocket, and the Trump Organization paid him back as “legal expenses.”
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Comments
Being able to frame the proceedings is rather important to free speech.
Doesn’t seem like much of a gag order to me. Leave any witness alone to not influence potential jurors which won’t do much at the trial either way. Don’t attack the Council our Court if it would “materially interfere” which doesn’t seem to me includes insulting them outside of what Trump is doing now and don’t go after jurors after they are chosen which I don’t think Trump has done anyways outside of saying he will never get a fair trial which he won’t.
Still, I think he has a 1st Amendment right to say whatever he want’s outside of urging violence against others. They sure don’t waste much time attacking him.
If interpreted correctly, yes. Seems fair. If (and by that I mean *when*) interpreted broadly to the point of stupidity, it forbids him from saying anything about anybody. Not a bad order for Bob the Mouthy Guy down at the county courthouse who had a legal dispute about a tree that fell on city property, but far, far more dangerous when placed against the *leading candidate for President* by a prosecutor who has been coordinating fairly openly with the man’s political opponent.
Because of course a judge would do that 🙄 Democrats sure are in a hurry to confirm America as the newest banana republic in the Americas eh. They really ought to pace themselves.
At least this judge understands “or in this criminal proceeding” his prceeding is criminal.
‘
Yeah because Trump and his supporters consistently try to incite violence towards those involved in the trial. The gag order is exactly what’s required for a democracy. This is you wanting your man to get away with anything he wants.
You spelled Biden wrong. You really have to be blind to not see the destruction the left is causing, and America becoming a 3rd world country after Husseins fundamental transformation that HE is completing with Delusional Joe pretending to be in charge. Go back to sleep.
Its objective fact that Biden is a good president, Historians have already labelled in 14th best president of all time vs Trump being the worst. The basis for this is the public record both in terms of policy and impact on democracy, its also the case that politically Trump is a loser with a string of election losses. His influence on the current congress is further evidence of this with sane Republicans being pretty sick of the MAGA wingnuts who make doing a good job all but impossible. ITs also objectively the case that Biden has actually achieved things in accordance with what he set out to do unlike Trump who made a lot of claims but delivered only failure.
I’m sorry that the facts point to the opposite to what you believe
Your Mom is calling from upstairs. Your Hot Pockets are ready.
Do you even listen to yourself? How can it be “objective fact” that someone is a good or a bad president? By definition “good” and “bad” are subjective judgments.
And who anointed “historians” as the judges of a president’s quality? Historians, if they’re truthful people, can tell you what a president did; but their opinion on whether that was good or bad is no more valuable than anyone else’s.
In any case these “historians” you quote are all deeply partisan and dishonest hacks, who came up with ranking Biden 14th rather than 1st only because 1st would be too implausible even for you. By saying he’s only 14th they hope, in vain, to create an air of objectivity. But consider the fact that this same poll ranked Woodrow Wilson, a truly terrible president, as 15th best. That says all one needs to know about the values of the “historians” polled.
And 0bama/Biden (it’s really one administration) is shaping up to be perhaps even worse than Wilson. Everything this administration touches turns to sh*t. Biden’s personal corruption is only the cherry on top.
“The gag order is exactly what’s required for a democracy.”
Do you even preview what you write before you hit the Submit button, dingus?
I do, the above statement is factually true. For a fair trial having the witnesses, prosecutors and jury must be protected. Trump has proven over and over again he is willing to go after all and sundry, and his supporters have also proven time and time again that they are willing to thugs and attempt to intimidate people. There many examples in many cases of this now.
The USA is not a democracy. It is a Constitutional Republic.
It’s both. The founders repeatedly said it was a democracy. They also said it was a republic. The idea that these are incompatible things has no basis.
The interesting thing is until recently Congress had a slush fund to pay off accusers of the political class….USING TAXPAYER FUNDS! If only those records could be leaked. I wonder how many times Creepy Joe used those services.?
This “slush fund” if you want to call it that still exists, as it has to. It does not exist “to pay off accusers of the political class”, it exists to settle lawsuits by congressional staff. So of course it uses taxpayer funds. When an employee sues the Congress and wins, the taxpayer is liable. Therefore if the Congress settles with the plaintiff, the settlement money rightly comes from the taxpayer. Who else should pay, if not the defendant?!
You receive an invoice for legal expenses then note that you paid said invoice for legal expenses how it that illegal?
May he damn them with faint praise?
He did not exclude himself. Trump should (and probably will) unload on the judge for perpetuating this witch hunt. Michael Cohen needs all the protection he can get.
Judge Juan Merchan. Another douchebag member of the judicial system who wears his Marxism as a banner of pride.
Fûck him.
See. Trump didn’t even have to direct me to say anything. I chose to do so as a right of free speech.
Regarding potential jurors. Most the potential jurors are leftist Demitards and will vote to convict a ham sandwich. New York has become a leftists shit hole. Perhaps they need to concentrate on prosecuting criminals, and not a former president who allegedly stuck his dick into a whore.
By the way, that same cum dumpster states on many occasions that the alleged trust did not occur.
Alvin Bragg. One of the dumbest black members of the get Trump posse. More stupid than Willis, and fatter than the gorilla James.
Just read that the Judge’s daughter is a a Democrat activist who has done work for Schiff and the DNC. The good Judge is just a loyal team player.
A former president who tried to catch and kill a story resulting in election interference. Your attempts to smear everyone is pretty pitiful. Do better snowflake.
You belong in an asylum. Get help.
This poorly-written comment makes absolutely no sense.
You’re fast approaching the “parody account” status.
The talking points from the Xenu mothership lose something when translated into English.
It’s not a talking point, its an objective statement about the case. If you’d bothered to even read the statement of fact that Bragg issued you would know this.
https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000187-4dd5-dfdf-af9f-4dfda6e80000
Its factually the case, I’m sorry you are too ignorant to understand what the case is about. Do better
Is he not “court staff” – or do arrogant judges think of themselves as the court personified
It gets real for Trump on April 15.
No more throwing money at his problems to make them go away.
They want him in jail and the evidence is overwhelming.
?
I’m simply fascinated.
Explain please. Oh, and will he be prevented from running for President?
Thanks
Trump can still run for President and yes, even if it is from a jail cell.
Not sure what you’re asking me to explain.
Michael Cohen got 3 years for his role in the crimes seems pretty self explanatory.
Tehen Trump can order an extraction with extreme prejudice 🙂
The two cases talked about here are both at beat selective prosecution, at worst misuse of the courts for political gain.
Re: Stormy can you provide a single example of another celebrity prosecuted for paying off a blackmailer to be quiet about something that is embarrassing but not illegal?
Re: Real estate we know for a fact that there is no single case in existence of someone prosecuted for supposed loan “fraud” in which no one lost money, no one was harmed, the loaners made a nice profit, the loaners agreed with the loanee of the facts of the filings, and previous authorities had already concluded there was no crime!
“can you provide a single example of another celebrity prosecuted for paying off a blackmailer to be quiet about something”
No.
And that is not what Trump is being prosecuted for.
That’s pretty close to the facts of Sholom Rubashkin’s case. The bank knew exactly what was happening at his business, and were happy to lend him money, which he was paying on time to their complete satisfaction, until the prosecutor set out to ruin his business and make it unsaleable so that the bank would lose its money and thus he would be subject to a 27-year sentence for causing the bank such a huge loss. If he’d been allowed to sell the business for its true worth the bank would have made no loss. And if they hadn’t raided the business in the first place the bank would have continued earning interest and be very happy. The feds deliberately created the bank’s loss and then threw him in a cell for it. Thank Trump for finally releasing him, after 8 years. (He should have done it nearly a year earlier, but better late than never.)
Never heard of that case before. A quick web search turns up “Former Agriprocessors employees testified that Mr. Rubashkin had personally directed them to create false invoices” which is fraud and deserving of charges. Do you have further information?
This is an election interference case, the allegation is that Trump used catch and kill for a story about sex with stormy Daniels whilst his wife was pregnant. Not exactly a good look for the Conservative candidate.
Actually the law used for Trumps fraud has been around for decades so its highly likely that many cases have been tried using it.
The closest example resulted in John Edwards getting an acquittal.
@Ironclaw
John Edwards was a bribery case, that’s nothing like any of the indictments with respect to Trump. Indeed we already know from the public record that Trump has little or no defence of his conduct. At least two judges have said Trump is likely to be guilty, and we know from the Hurr report that the conduct of Trump is easily indictable and likely to result in conviction. The public record is damning for Trump.
What are you talking about? The Edwards case had nothing to do with bribery. It was a very close parallel to this one. Edwards paid his mistress money to shut her mouth, which he raised from wealthy friends. The FEC claimed that the purpose of shutting her mouth was to save his candidacy, and therefore it was a campaign expenditure, and the donations that funded it were campaign donations that went over the limit. That’s pretty much exactly the same theory that Bragg is using to get his “other crime”. The Edwards jury didn’t buy it.
Milhouse, it wasn’t the FEC that claimed the payoff to Edward’s mistress was a campaign expenditure, it was Edwards who reported it as such. Now they are prosecuting Trump for doing the opposite!
Edwards was only acquitted on one of six counts. The jury deadlocked on the other five counts, and the prosecutor declined to prosecute again.
Literally the only ‘evidence’ they have is the testimony of Cohen, somebody previously convicted of perjury, that the generic payments for ‘legal expenses’ were in fact shadow reimbursements. Which I believe that he previously testified under oath were his own decision and NOT at Trump’s direction.
So was he lying then, or is he lying now? Either way he’s a liar.
And even if you believe that he did it as claimed, it takes an incredibly tortured chain of logic to turn it into a felon, it relies upon multiple ‘novel interpretations’ that have never been done before.
That’s all up to the jury to decide.
And with Trump’s record in the courtroom the chances of a conviction are a serious threat to his freedom.
There is no evidence for God sakes
Cripes. ANOTHER idiot with TDS floats in.
It is probably not another idiot, just a new alias.
“JHarp” has been crop-dusting in Disqus comment sections for a long time.
At least with Disqus, he can be subjected to the time-honored “Block” function.
Election season is the Eternal September of trolls. Then, they get all butthurt and start crapping on the posts that have nothing to do with Orange Man.
oooo lookee here. A troll has come to visit.
Have all your left wing sites been shuttered in bankruptcy?
The trolls that burn brightest pound the keyboard the shortest.
And there’s an agency called the US Secret Service that is charged legally with protecting every President and former President that is going to have a say about whether or not Trump is ever going to see a day in jail, where he can’t properly be protected or where he would be placed in danger. Fed overrules State, jharphead. And as for the evidence being “overwhelming”, if it was so overwhelming, why didn’t Vance prosecute when he had the chance? Or the SDNY? Your brain is Swiss cheese, just as this case is.
Federal laws override state laws, because they are the supreme law of the land. But federal officials don’t get to override state officials, let alone state laws. If Trump were sentenced to prison in NY State, the Secret Service would not have the authority to prevent the state authorities from taking him into custody. They’d just have to protect him there. They’d probably ask the NY authorities to hold him in a separate facility or something like that, where nobody could enter without clearance.
Overwhelming? Give us a snippet
They had to create a novel charge in order to get around the statute of limitations and I think any conviction will be overturned on Appeal. Until then if someone tells you they’re from New York demand to know why they are so corrupt. Until New Yorkers feel the anger of the rest of the country they will never do what is necessary to change.
Judges are not “staff”, just as congressmen are not congressional staff and presidents are not White House staff.
Is this the case with the ridiculous legal theory?
You’ll have to be more specific. There are quite a few cases against Trump based on ridiculous legal theories.
All of them, actually.
It is.
It’s the “Pie in the Sky” theory of Let’s prosecute Donald Trump because, meh!
Trump’s lawyer was sentenced to 3 years in prison for his role in the crimes.
That, and he will be testifying against Trump.
Trump is in serious trouble.
Cohen has already been proven as a fucking liar.
So has Trump.
It’s up to the jury to decide who to believe.
Unlike trump, Cohen is a convicted perjurer. That means the court can’t even question whether or not he’s a liar, it’s just documented Fact.
@Ironclaw
Except Cohens perjury was on behalf of Trump. So while credibility is an issue the narrative that Cohen lied to cover up Trumps crimes is still a credible narrative. Especially given the other evidence.
Evidence has been building for a long time, Dems and their stooges are in serious trouble. Thye will be paying dearly.
If he is a perjurer, by definition he can’t be trusted. His own testimony is suspect and gives grounds for endless appeals. You are a circular firing squad of illogic.
That Cohen is so dopey that he plead guilty to something that was not a crime
“Trump’s lawyer was sentenced to 3 years in prison for his role in the crimes.”
Let’s fix this, shall we?
‘One of the lawyers the Trump’ organization employs was sentenced to 3 years in prison for crimes that lawyer committed..’
See how easy that was? Just a few tweaks, you’re saying it WITHOUT lies built in.
I agree with some categories but not others of the gag order. Court staff should be off limits. Any official should be subject to public criticism by the accused. I don’t like the notion that the accused cannot speak out against witnesses for the other side.
OK, I can’t give a down vote for the court staff part and an upvote for official public criticism part so you get my upvote
Court staff are absolutely not off limits. The only ones that should arguably be off limits is the members of the jury – but if what is being said about them is TRUE, then of course it should be allowed.
One of the driving motivations for the Founding Fathers to declare their independence from England was the proscription on criminal defendants from speaking out against the Crown. And yet, here the – America’s Crown – are, doing it all over again.
To all the lawyers out there: Is this gag order as written legal? I can understand a gag order when officers of the court could get physically harmed, but limiting the rights of the accused to freedom of speech and the right to defend themselves in public seems a gross miscarriage of justice (just like this whole war by lawfare is a gross miscarriage of justice).
My guess is that is it is as legal as the judge enforcing it wants it to be
A blanket generic order that you can’t publicly criticize jurors MIGHT be able to stand up – although the truth is obviously a good defense against it.
A blanket order saying he’s not allowed to publicly criticize witnesses is just absurd and a blatant 1st Amendment violation.
You don’t want the jury to see him criticize witnesses? That’s what sequestration is for.
To the best of my (non-lawyer) knowledge, a legal gag order is one that prevents anyone involved from attempting to influence witnesses and jurors via bribes or threats. “Criticism” of government officials is protected speech, but you might have an argument that some forms of criticism are meant to influence a witness or juror. (I’m not sure that merely “influencing” a juror or witness can be prohibited, it may be that the speech has to convey a threat or a bribe, because both are illegal.) Because the law already prohibits jury and witness tampering (by threats or bribes), such speech from a defendant (or his attorneys) is already proscribed. When a judge makes the proscription part of a “gag order,” it’s just theater. Any more than a restatement of the law is likely not authorized, and might fall to an appeal.
Yes, gag orders in lawsuits are completely legal and not at all uncommon. The accused is supposed to defend himself in the courtroom, not in public. But Trump is free to discuss the case in public; he just can’t attack witnesses, lawyers, or court staff. And Bragg is subject to the exact same restrictions. He can’t attack any of those people either, including Trump’s lawyers. I’m not sure whether he can attack Trump himself.
It wouldn’t be much of a gag order if it allowed him to outright prejudice the jury pool.
Yes, but looking at the list above, nothing seems to cover Trump himself. And since Trump is allowed to attack Bragg, it would follow that Bragg should be allowed to attack Trump.
This is getting to be a litmus test. Judges who issue gag orders against President Trump are showing a bias against him EVERY TIME. They hate him so much, they don’t even care that they are proving themselves biased.
Well, if there is any silver lining to the many prosecutions against him, it’s showing us the extent of the corruption.
How so? The orders affect both parties equally.
Because one party is the defendant victim of a gross abuse of process in Biden regime orchestrated banana republic police state trial and the other is the victimizer. The victim has been constrained in his ability to speak out against this outrage.
A series of made up things isn’t much of an argument
Not just extent of corruption, it shows us specifically who is corrupt,
Guess Law schools went Marxist decades ago, and the next case is to start in a month.
On a Bad Blue top 20 Tweet a few days ago one Susan Rice said security personnel are worried Trump becoming a security risk getting close to bankruptcy.
So in other words biden and dems are allowed to use everything that happens for negative campaigning against trump, while trump isn’t allowed to counter it ??
He can counter it, but not by attacking witnesses, lawyers, or court staff. And people in his campaign can attack anyone they like, so long as he didn’t tell them to.
The theory here is that the payoff benefitted Trump’s campaign, yet was not reported as a campaign expenditure.
Well, the “former intelligence officials” open letter, saying the laptop from hell had “all the earmarks of Russian disinformation” was cooked up by, and the signatures thereon were solicited by, the Biden campaign. The contribution of those signatures to the campaign were of inestimable value, yet they weren’t reported as campaign contributions. Surely, some creative prosecutor could attach a monetary value to the signatures, and take someone to task for the failure to report the contribution. Surely, this concept is less far-fetched than the novel legal theory by which Trump is being prosecuted here.
No, that doesn’t work.
First of all, where did you read that the campaign solicited the signatures? As far as I can recall Blinken was the “impetus” for the letter, but there was no information that he asked anyone to sign it.
Second, even if the campaign did solicit the signatures, those signatures would not count as a contribution, just as volunteering ones time to a campaign doesn’t count Now if the campaign had paid them for the signatures, it would have had to report that as a campaign expenditure. But there’s no indication that it did pay them.
The FEC says:
…when they’re doing so for Democrats.
Volunteering to aid Republicans is a threat to our Democracy.
In a Leftist (Democrat) ruled polity it is an act of treason against the State to defend yourself against prosecution using the law and the rules of evidence. That is the future they are showing us.
Subotai Bahadur
He’s still allowed to do that. He just can’t do it by attacking witnesses, lawyers, court staff, or their families. And Bragg is subject to the same order.
The subhed is phrased in a misleading manner. It could easily be read, by someone who doesn’t read the article, to mean that Bragg is not similarly gagged, which is not true.
We’ve had commenters here on LI before who falsely claimed that previous gag orders did not apply to the prosecution. This subhed lends itself to such misinterpretation. It’s only on reading the article that its true meaning becomes apparent.
Can someone please tell me what this is actually about, the case I mean? Paying off someone with a non-disclosure is pretty darn common and not a crime and Bragg still hasn’t said what mysterious Federal Law he is basing his case on or how a State Prosecutor has any jurisdiction over Federal Crime. I’ve listened to both sides of this and still don’t think Trump and his lawyers did anything illegal and if they did Bragg sure isn’t the one to charge them.
Bragg said Trump falsified business records, whereas the cancelled checks to Cohen were from personal accounts, not business accounts as “The Donald J Trump Revocable Trust” and “Donald John Trump” which are viewable through a GOOGLE search. That being said, what business records does Bragg think were falsified when none were created, according to Trump’s former lawyer, Joe Tacopina
The allegation is that he had Cohen pay Daniels, which was legal, and he reimbursed Cohen for this, still legal, but he accounted for it as “legal expenses” even though he knew what the money was really for, which Bragg says is falsifying business records. That would normally be a misdemeanor, but doing it in order to cover up another crime makes it a felony.
The “other crime” does not have to be a NY state crime. It can be a crime in another state, or even another country; in this case, the other crime Bragg alleges Trump committed, and falsified the records to cover up, is the federal crime of violating the campaign finance laws.
There’s no mystery about that; he didn’t specify it when he first brought the charge, because he didn’t have to at that point, but he’s specified it since. And he doesn’t need “jurisdiction” over it, because he’s not charging him with that crime, he’s just alleging as a matter of fact that Trump committed it. He’ll have to prove it beyond reasonable doubt, but even if he does so and the jury believes it, Trump still won’t be convicted of it because he isn’t charged with it.
For an example of how this works, think of the charge against Hunter Biden, that he purchased a gun while using illegal drugs, which is a crime. Leave aside whether that law is constitutional; assume for now that it is. The prosecutor will have to convince the jury beyond reasonable doubt that Biden was using illegal drugs at the time he bought the gun, but even if the jury is convinced and convicts him of buying the gun illegally, he would still not be convicted of the drug use, because that’s not the charge, it’s just an element in a different charge. Bragg’s contention about Trump is much the same in structure, though of course much more contentious.
Things have now become so twisted that judges are are making sure the government gets a fair trial.
I hope they don’t.
From the article, “DA Alvin Bragg inherited the case when he came into office in 2022 but suspended it. Then, he brought it back when Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign.” Any more stupid questions?
Correction:: Bragg did not INHERIT the case. He deliberately chaise to pursue it after two prior NY Attorney’s General declined to do so as it was so flimsy and frivolous.
This is bad enough, but this hack judge has done far worse by not docketing correspondance and ensuing decisions contained therein, neither are there any motions in the docket. The judge requires that attorneys notify the court and obtain its leave before submitting any motions. (Looking at other cases this appears to be the norm in NYS?) This has the effect of making the criminal trials to be almost all opaque, a form of Star Chamber. Trump’s attorneys have basically said as much in their filings.
These jackholes are running the
persecutionsprosecutions> so badly, they’re all gonna get appealed and probably overturned.Can they be that bad by accident? Or are they setting up a bigger “crisis” against the whole system — it didn’t even get the Orange Man Bad: burn it all down.
I know they’re that cynical, but are they that disciplined?