Judge Restricts Trump’s Ability to Post Details About His Criminal Case

President Donald Trump speaks to media before departing the White House on Marine One on Oct. 11, 2019. Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times

A New York judge on Monday has restricted what evidence former President Donald Trump can publicly disclose about a criminal case against him.

Trump was indicted in March with 34 felony counts (pdf) of falsifying business records, to which he pleaded not guilty in April. The case—the first time a former president has been charged with a crime—was brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan ordered Monday that Trump can’t publicly release details about witnesses or other evidence obtained by the prosecution before the case goes to trial.

Trump cannot provide such information to any third party or to “any news or social media platforms ... without prior approval from the court,” the order reads.

Social media platforms include but are not limited to Truth Social, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Twitter, Snapchat, and YouTube.

Merchan’s order grants a request from Bragg in April to not let Trump use criminal case evidence publicly.

Bragg’s office had argued in a court filing that Trump “has a longstanding and perhaps singular history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, trial jurors, grand jurors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him, putting those individuals and their families at considerable safety risk.”

The prosecution did not request a gag order. The filing said, “Defendant has a constitutional right to speak publicly about this case, and the People do not seek to infringe upon that right.”

Claims and Allegations

Trump has framed the Manhattan District Attorney’s office’s criminal charges against him as politically motivated.

Merchan previously donated three times to ActBlue in the summer of 2020, including one time to candidate Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The case against Trump is linked to alleged non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) signed before the 2016 presidential election by adult entertainment performer Stormy Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford; former Playboy model Karen McDougal; and Dino Sajudin, a former doorman at the Trump Tower.

Clifford was paid $130,000 to sign an NDA over an alleged one-night affair she had with Trump in 2006. The NDA was facilitated by Trump’s then-attorney, Michael Cohen. While Trump has consistently denied the affair ever took place, he previously said on TruthSocial that it was a “totally legal $130,000 NDA.”

McDougal claimed she was offered hush money to not speak about her affair with Trump over 10 months in the early 2000s.

In the “statement of facts” (pdf) that accompanied Bragg’s 16-page indictment, American Media Inc. (AMI), the publisher of the National Enquirer, is alleged to have paid $150,000 as hush money to McDougal, in what Bragg called a “catch and kill” scheme by Trump and AMI to suppress negative information ahead of the 2016 election.

But Trump has denied the existence of any NDA, or having an affair with McDougal.

The same statement of facts from Bragg’s office alleged that AMI paid $30,000 to Sajudin to acquire exclusive rights to a story about how Trump had allegedly fathered a child out of wedlock. Trump previously denied the allegations.

As part of the deal, Sajudin had to sign an NDA with AMI that prevented him from talking about his allegations. The payment was allegedly falsely characterized in AMI’s records.

According to Bragg’s statement of facts, later, when AMI concluded the doorman’s story was not true, the AMI CEO, David Pecker, sought to release Sajudin from the NDA. But Cohen told Pecker not to release Sajudin from the NDA until after the presidential election, and Pecker complied with the instruction.