NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s lawyers warned Monday that a gag order sought by New York prosecutors ahead of his March 25 hush-money trial would amount to an unconstitutional and unlawful prior restriction on the former president’s freedom of expression.
Trump’s lawyers urged Judge Juan Manuel Merchan to deny the request, which prosecutors said was motivated by his “long history of making public and inflammatory comments” about people in his lawsuits, as well as a spike in the number of threats related to his rhetoric.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office last week sought what it described as a “barely tailored” order to bar Trump from making public statements or directing others to make public statements about potential witnesses and jurors, as well as statements intended to hinder or harass court personnel. , the prosecution team or their families.
Trump’s lawyers said in court papers Monday that such an order would hamper his ability to “respond to public attacks regarding this matter,” while enemies including his former lawyer Michael Cohen are free to criticize him in TV performances and on social media.
They suggested that the prosecutor’s request is intended to muzzle Trump, the leading Republican presidential candidate, at a crucial moment in his campaign — with Super Tuesday primaries in 16 states and his Democratic rival, President Joe Biden, about to to deliver the annual State of the Union. address on Thursday.
“American voters have a First Amendment right to hear President Trump’s uncensored voice on all issues related to this case,” Trump’s attorneys Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles wrote in their 18-page response.
“President Trump’s political opponents have attacked him on the basis of this case and will continue to do so,” Trump’s lawyers said. “Voters have the right to listen to President Trump’s unfettered responses to those attacks — and not just one side of that debate.”
In a related filing Monday, Trump’s lawyers said they agreed with prosecutors that jurors’ names should be withheld from the public to protect their safety.
Merchan did not rule immediately. Barring a last-minute delay, the New York case will be the first of Trump’s four criminal charges to go to trial.
The Manhattan case centers on allegations that Trump falsified his company’s internal records to conceal the true nature of payments to Cohen after he paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 as part of an effort during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign to to bury claims that he had had extramarital affairs. sexual encounters.
Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying corporate records, a crime punishable by up to four years in prison, although there is no guarantee a conviction would result in prison time.
Trump has repeatedly lashed out about the case on social media, warning of ‘possible death’ & destruction” before his indictment last year, posting a photo on social media of himself holding a baseball bat next to a photo of District Attorney Alvin Bragg and complaining that Merchan is “a Trump-hating judge” with a family full of “Trump haters ”. ”
The proposed silence order would not prevent Trump from commenting on Bragg, an elected Democrat.
Trump’s lawyers argued Monday that his previous comments about Bragg should have “no bearing” on Merchan’s decision. They said prosecutors were wrong to blame Trump for a spike in threats Bragg and his office received after he posted on social media last year that he was about to be arrested and encouraged his supporters to protest and “take back our nation!”
Trump did not make the threats and bears no responsibility for the actions of others, his lawyers wrote, characterizing the proposed silence order as a “classic heckler veto.”
A silence order would add to restrictions put in place after Trump’s arraignment last April that ban him from using evidence in the case to attack witnesses. Trump’s lawyers said they have taken “great care to comply with the terms of that order.”
Trump has already imposed a gag order in his criminal election interference case in Washington DC and was fined $15,000 for twice violating a gag order imposed in his civil fraud trial in New York after making a disparaging social media post about the chief clerk of the judge.
“Self-regulation is not a viable alternative, as the defendant’s recent history makes clear,” prosecutors told Merchan in court filings last week.
Trump, they said, “has a long and perhaps extraordinary history” of using social media, campaign speeches and other public statements to “enlighten judges, jurors, attorneys, witnesses and other individuals involved in legal proceedings against him.” traps’.
The proposed silence order echoes parts of an order imposed on Trump in October in his separate federal case in Washington, accusing him of plotting to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss to Biden.
A federal appeals court panel in December largely upheld Judge Tanya Chutkan’s ban, but narrowed it in a major way by giving Trump the freedom to criticize special counsel Jack Smith, who brought the case. Prosecutors in Manhattan echoed that ruling by excluding Bragg from their proposed silence order.