Former president and perpetual defendant Donald Trump can’t seem to stop launching attacks.
Trump has been hit with gag orders in his previous cases thanks to his penchant for attacking witnesses, court staff, and anyone else connected to his charges. He did not have such an order in his felony case for falsifying business records…until now.
Tuesday morning, while everyone else involved in national politics was focused on Baltimore and the suffering, grief, and horror of an accident that resulted in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Trump was focused on his own grievances and plotting attacks.
He lashed out at Judge Juan Merchan, who on Monday refused to allow him to stall his trial any further based on unsupported allegations against the prosecution. He also launched attacks on the judge’s daughter as well.
Merchan responded quickly. By late afternoon, Trump had been slapped with a gag order, which goes further than previous ones. The order forbids:
“Making or directing others to make public statements about counsel in the case other than the District Attorney, members of the court’s staff, and the District Attorney’s staff, or 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.”
It also addresses Trump’s argument that he has “generally refrained from making extrajudicial statements” about other parties in this case, at least in comparison to his other cases, and his argument that he should have the right to “unfettered access to the voting public,” even if the court concludes remarks he makes are “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating,” and target “court and court staff, prosecutors and staff assigned to the cases, and private individuals including grand jurors performing their civic duty.”
To all this, Merchan responds, “The court is unpersuaded.”
The order also differed from Trump’s previous similar directives in that it is applied directly to him, rather than to all parties in the case, reports Just Security‘s Adam Klasfeld.
So far, Trump, whose trial starts on April 15th, has not responded to the order.
It will be interesting to see if Trump decides to test Judge Marchan’s resolve with any violations of the gag order. One gets the sense that the no-nonsense judge won’t hesitate to penalize him heavily if he does and make a public example of his defiance.
