A New York appeals court Thursday denied former President Donald Trump’s bid to dismiss the partial gag order against him in his criminal case.
Trump had argued the gag order was unnecessary and should be dismissed after his conviction in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 campaign.
A five-judge panel of the state Appellate Division, a midlevel appeals court, disagreed. It backed Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling that the order should remain in place until sentencing, which the judges called “a critical stage of the criminal proceeding,” or until the case is otherwise disposed of.
Merchan lifted some of the gag order’s restrictions in June, freeing Trump to comment on witnesses who testified against him in the weekslong trial, but he left in place part of the order barring Trump from going after court staff members, individual prosecutors and “family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney.”
Both the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case, were never subjects of the order, but Merchan expanded the restrictions on family members after Trump’s repeated criticisms of his daughter and the DA’s wife.
The appeals court ruling noted it had rejected Trump’s earlier appeal of the gag order after it found Merchan had “properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm.”
The judges noted that Bragg had submitted evidence showing that “threats received by District Attorney staff after the jury verdict continued to pose a significant and imminent threat,” and they rejected arguments from Trump’s attorneys that Merchan had violated his right to free speech.
“[S]ince the underlying criminal action remains pending, Justice Merchan did not act in excess of jurisdiction by maintaining the narrowly tailored protections,” the decision said.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung maintained that Merchan’s order is “blatantly un-American.”
“President Trump continues to forcefully challenge Acting Justice Merchan’s decision to leave in place portions of the unconstitutional Gag Order, which is meant to prevent President Trump from speaking freely about Judge Merchan’s disqualifying conflicts,” he said in a statement.
The ruling makes it likely that the order will remain in place until sometime in September. Trump is tentatively scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 18. The sentencing was originally scheduled for July 11, but Merchan postponed it to consider arguments from Trump’s lawyers that the Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity in a federal criminal case against Trump should result in a new trial or the outright dismissal of the charges.
Merchan is expected to issue his ruling on the immunity issue by Sept. 6, and the order could be lifted then if he rules in Trump’s favor.
Trump had pleaded not guilty in the hush money case.
