Judge issues gag order barring Donald Trump from commenting on witnesses, others in hush money case
A New York judge issued a gag order Tuesday barring Donald Trump from making public statements about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his upcoming hush-money criminal trial.
Judge Juan M. Merchan cited the former president’s prior comments about him and others in the case, as well as a looming April 15 trial date, in granting a prosecution request for what it termed a “narrowly tailored” order barring Trump from making certain out-of-court statements.
“It is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” Merchan wrote.
Prosecutors had asked for the gag order, citing what they called Trump’s “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks” about people involved in his legal cases.
NY judge issues gag order on Trump in hush money trial, blasting his ‘threatening, inflammatory, denigrating’ statements
A New York judge has imposed a gag order on Donald Trump, limiting the former president from making statements about potential witnesses in the criminal trial relating to hush money payments scheduled to begin next month.
Judge Juan Merchan also said that Trump can’t make statements about attorneys, court staff or the family members of prosecutors or lawyers intended to interfere with the case. Trump is also barred from making statements about any potential or actual juror.
The former president, Merchan wrote, has a history of making “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” statements against people at all levels of the justice system, including jurors.