The Manhattan district attorney’s office on Monday asked the judge overseeing Donald Trump’s criminal trial related to hush money payments to expand the gag order to stop the former president from attacking family members of people involved in the case.
“To the extent that the original March 26 Order did not already prohibit this behavior, this Court can and should clarify or extend the Order to protect family members of the Court on the record described below, and should warn defendant that any future disregard of the Order will result in sanctions,” prosecutors wrote in a motion to Judge Juan Merchan.
Last week prosecutors asked the judge to clarify or confirm whether the gag order issued earlier in the week including prohibiting Trump from making comments about family members. Trump’s lawyers replied that they didn’t believe it did and now both sides are filing additional legal briefs.
“This Court should immediately make clear that defendant is prohibited from making or directing others to make public statements about family members of the Court, the District Attorney, and all other individuals mentioned in the Order,” prosecutors wrote.
Last week, soon after the gag order stopping Trump from making statements about witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, court staff or the family members of prosecutors and court staff, Trump launched a series of posts on his social media platform. The gag order did not cover District Attorney Alvin Bragg or the judge.
Trump said Merchan was “compromised” and he identified by name the judge’s daughter who works for a political consulting firm. Trump then cited posts on X from an account he said belonged to the daughter. A spokesman for the court said the judge’s daughter deactivated her account two years ago and the posts were not from her.
Trump has argued he has a First Amendment right to defend himself and engage in campaign speech.
“Defendant knows what he is doing, and everyone else does too. And we all know exactly what defendant intends because he has said for decades that it is part of his life philosophy to go after his perceived opponents ‘as viciously and as violently’ as he can,” prosecutors wrote.
“But the suggestion that defendant is merely engaging in political counter-speech is an obvious fiction that this Court should emphatically reject,” prosecutors wrote. “None of defendant’s attacks in the past week consist of campaign advocacy. Instead, defendant has viciously and falsely smeared the Court and the family member for no reason other than the Court’s presiding over this criminal trial.”
Trump’s attorneys will file a brief before the judge rules.
