The Manhattan District Attorney’s office requested clarifications to former President Donald Trump’s gag order on March 28, a move the defendants argue in a response letter to the judge would only expand the order.
“This court should make abundantly clear that the March 26 order protects family members of the court, the district attorney, and all other individuals mentioned in the order,” prosecutors argued in the March 29 letter.
“Such protection is amply warranted.”
A day after New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan issued a gag order prohibiting President Trump from making statements about jurors, potential jurors, witnesses, court staff, counsel, and their families “if those statements are made with the intent 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,” President Trump blasted the judge on social media while mentioning, but not naming, the judge’s daughter.
Justice Merchan is presiding over a state criminal case in which Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is prosecuting President Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
News media covered the statements while noting that the order, like the federal gag order against President Trump it was based on, did not prohibit statements about the judge or district attorney.
Prosecutors argued this was incorrect; and requested the judge update the gag order to “clarify or confirm” that the order would prohibit statements about family members of the judge, district attorney, and others in the order.
The request was not a formal motion, but a one-page letter to the court as the judge has ordered no new motions be filed without first obtaining leave from the court in the interest of time.
Contested Statement
“The People believe that the March 26 order is properly read to protect family members of the court,” the prosecutors wrote.The claim was not new, as defense attorneys had made a similar argument last year in requesting the judge’s recusal.
The defense had also argued that the judge had made campaign contributions in the 2020 elections and that he had a role in a previous case in “encouraging” former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg, who had pleaded guilty to criminal tax fraud in 2022, to cooperate against President Trump.
The judge found these did not point to bias and did not warrant recusal.
President Trump’s social media post was explicitly about the gag order, which he blasted as “illegal, un-American, unConstitutional” and “vicious.”
He claimed the judge “continues to try and take away my Rights” and “is wrongfully attempting to deprive me of my First Amendment Right to speak out against the Weaponization of Law Enforcement, including the fact that Crooked Joe Biden, Merrick Garland, and their Hacks and Thugs are tracking and following me all across the Country, obsessively trying to persecute me, while everyone knows I have done nothing wrong!”
In hearings last year, Justice Merchan had declined to issue a gag order at the prosecution’s request, pointing to the importance of First Amendment rights. However, he warned the parties from making inflammatory statements related to the case and said he may revisit the order later.
The judge now says that the risk of President Trump’s speech is “paramount” with the trial date of April 15 fast approaching.
Clarification
The district attorney argued that in requesting the gag order, he specifically pointed to another social media post President Trump had made about him while also mentioning the district attorney’s wife.Both statements claimed the district attorney and his family were partisan and that he was politically motivated to prosecute President Trump.
The prosecutors argued that trial participants have “objectively reasonable concerns about their safety and that of their family members,” and that President Trump’s speech could impact their behavior.
“Moreover, ’the undertow generated by such statements does not stop with the named individual. It is also highly likely to influence other witnesses’ and other trial participants,” they wrote to the judge.
Meanwhile, the defense argued that President Trump had interpreted the gag order the same way the public had, pointing to news articles where media members stated that the gag order did not apply to the judge or district attorney.
“Contrary to the People’s suggestion, the court cannot ‘direct’ President Trump to do something that the gag order does not require,” the defense argued.
To modify the gag order would be to expand it, in which case the defense requested holding another hearing.
“Such briefing would address, inter alia, the Constitutional problems attendant with any additional improper restrictions on protected campaign speech—which would implicate First Amendment rights that belong to not only President Trump but also the public—where the family member referenced in the pre-motion letter is actively supporting adversarial campaign speech by President Trump’s political opponents,” the response letter read.
