Donald Trump has been gagged again. The judge overseeing the former president’s coming Manhattan criminal trial on Tuesday imposed a gag order that bars him from attacking “reasonably foreseeable witnesses” or other people involved in the case, in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records connected to a hush money payment, Politico reports. It’s the third case in recent months in which Trump has been restricted in what he can say publicly about legal proceedings against him. The Manhattan case, with a start date of April 15, is set to be the first Trump criminal case to go to trial. Justice Juan Merchan’s four-page order limits Trump — or others acting at Trump’s behest — in various ways. He is not allowed to comment publicly about witnesses or prospective jurors. He is also restricted from commenting about lawyers working on the case, court staff or their families, with one exception: The lead prosecutor, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, is not off limits.
Merchan wrote that Trump has used his public platform to make “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” statements about various people linked to the case. Trump has attacked the judge himself and one of his family members. “Given that the eve of trial is upon us, it is without question that the imminency of the risk of harm is now paramount,” Merchan wrote. Merchan noted that just a day before the judge issued the gag order, Trump had publicly “targeted” a prosecutor working on the case, referring to him as a “radical left” prosecutor in a press conference after a hearing to set the trial date. A spokesman for the Trump campaign, Steven Cheung, called the order “unconstitutional,” saying it prevents Trump “from engaging in core political speech, which is entitled to the highest level of protection under the First Amendment.”
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