New York Judge Juan Merchan on Tuesday imposed a gag order of former President Donald Trump ahead of his Manhattan criminal hush-money trial next month.
Merchan granted Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s motion to bar Trump from making public statements about jurors and “known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation in the investigation.”
Merchan also barred Trump from making public statements about the D.A.’s staff other than Bragg himself, members of the court’s staff and family members of any counsel of staff member “if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with” the case.
Merchan noted that Trump “does not deny” his prior “threatening, inflammatory, [and] denigrating” statements cited by the D.A.’s filing. “Such inflammatory extrajudicial statements undoubtedly risk impeding the orderly administration of this Court,” the judge wrote.
BREAKING: NY judge issues a gag order restricting Trump's ability to attack witnesses, prosecutors, their families or jurors. https://t.co/8hoEk9xnN3 pic.twitter.com/XzEr7BD5b5
— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) March 26, 2024
The judge who oversaw Trump’s New York civil fraud trial previously imposed a gag order on the former president following his attacks on the judge’s principal clerk.
The order came down on the same day that Trump attacked the judge and his daughter on Truth Social, though the D.A.’s motion was filed weeks earlier.
Merchan on Monday scolded the former president’s lawyers over their prosecutorial misconduct allegations and scheduled Trump’s trial for April 15.
“Judge Merchan is really all business in the upcoming voter deception trial,” former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman tweeted. “He imposes a substantial gag order on Trump. And as he showed yesterday, he will be very ready to back it up if Trump flouts it, particularly after a jury is in place.”
