NEW YORK — Donald Trump has asked the judge who oversaw his falsifying records case to terminate the gag order that barred the former president and presumptive Republican nominee from making comments about witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, court staff and relatives of those people throughout his six-week trial.
The gag order remained in effect after his conviction Thursday, and Trump has appeared to flirt with another potential violation at least once since then, publicly insulting his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who was a key witness for the prosecution.
Attorneys for Trump said before and during the trial that the gag order violated his First Amendment rights and his right to speak as a political candidate. On Monday, they renewed that argument.
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Donald Trump was found guilty on all 34 counts of falsifying business records. Will Trump go to jail? Can he be president? We explain what’s next.
Todd Blanche and Emil Bove submitted a letter asking for the order to be revoked and arguing that the need for their client to speak is “even stronger” than it previously was. They cited post-verdict comments from President Biden and two key witnesses as reasons that there should no longer be any prohibition on Trump’s speech related to the case.
“Now that the trial is concluded, the concerns articulated by the government and the Court do not justify continued restrictions on the First Amendment rights of President Trump … and the American people,” the attorneys wrote.
Trump’s defense also pointed to the fact that he’s debating Biden at the end of the month as a reason he needs to be able to speak freely and defend himself. In his comments about the trial, Biden did not address Trump’s guilt or innocence, but said the legal process should be respected and not attacked or undermined.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) will have an opportunity to say whether his office would oppose the revocation of the gag order before the judge rules. His spokeswoman declined to comment Tuesday. In seeking the order in the first place, prosecutors cited examples of how Trump’s rhetoric routinely inspires threats of violence and harassment by his followers.
Trump is scheduled to be sentenced July 11. He faces a potential 1⅓ to four years in prison, but no incarceration is mandatory for the charges he was convicted of under state sentencing guidelines.
The former president’s public comments about the trial, the judge and the verdict outside of court could influence Merchan’s thinking about a sentence.
It took the jury about 11 hours over two days to find that Trump was involved in the falsification of business records to cover up claims from adult-film actress Stormy Daniels weeks before the 2016 presidential election, as other scandals had begun to plague his campaign. She alleges they had a sexual encounter in 2006; Trump denies they had sex.
The jury found that the concealment of a $130,000 payment to Daniels, through Cohen, was made on Trump’s behalf and that Trump reimbursed Cohen in a series of 2017 payments that were illegally called “legal fees” on his books.
Prosecutors argued that Trump wanted to hide the payment from the public and keep it out of campaign finance disclosures, part of a conspiracy to shut down similarly negative stories during the election.
