Republican presidential candidate and former US President Donald Trump attends a press conference, the day after a guilty verdict in his criminal trial on charges that he falsified company records to hide money he paid in 2016 to silence porn star Stormy Daniels, in the Trump Tower in New York City, USA, May 31, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Prosecutors in New York told a judge they are opposing a request from former President Donald Trump to lift the gag order against him after he was found guilty in his criminal hush-money case.
The The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office asked Judge Juan Merchan to keep the silence order against Trump in effect “at least during the sentencing hearing” on July 11 and “the resolution of any post-trial motions.”
Trump’s lawyers this week asked Merchan to withdraw the gag order, arguing that the grounds for doing so no longer exist because the trial concluded last Thursday with Trump’s conviction on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
But prosecutors said in their new letter to Merchan that the gag order was “based not only on the need to avoid threats to the fairness of the trial itself … but also on the Court’s broader ‘obligation to prevent actual harm to the integrity of prevent the process’. procedure.’ “
Trump was fined a total of $10,000 during his trial in Manhattan Supreme Court for violating the silence order.
The order prohibits him from making public statements or directing others to make public statements about witnesses in the case, prosecutors, court personnel, jurors, potential jurors, as well as members of Merchan’s family and members of the family of District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
In their letter to Merchan asking for the silence order to be lifted, Trump’s lawyers said the order limited his First Amendment rights while he campaigned for president as the presumptive Republican nominee.
The lawyers wrote that “the constitutional mandate for unrestrained campaign advocacy by President Trump is even stronger in light of” a campaign event on behalf of President Joe Biden outside the courthouse last week, Biden’s comments about the jury’s verdict in the case, and “ continued public attacks” against Trump by Daniels and his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.
The lawyers also cited the planned June 27 debate between Trump and Biden.
