Trump will debate Biden while under gag orders. What he can’t say
President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump 2024.
Kevin Lamarque | Jay Paul | Reuters
The hush money gag order
Trump has grappled with the gag order applied by Manhattan Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan during the ex-president’s historic criminal hush money trial.
That court-ordered muzzle barred Trump from making public statements about witnesses or jurors in the case, or from speaking about lawyers and staff for the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the court, plus any of their family members.
Trump violated Merchan’s gag order 10 times during the trial, prompting the judge to hold him in contempt and even threaten to throw him in jail if he didn’t stop.
Trump was convicted in late May on 34 counts of falsifying business records linked to a scheme to silence porn star Stormy Daniels from speaking before the 2016 election about an alleged one-night stand with Trump years earlier.
The gag order was not automatically lifted when the trial ended, and prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued that Merchan should keep most of the restrictions in place until Trump is sentenced on July 11.
But Merchan on Tuesday partially lifted the order, allowing Trump to speak about trial witnesses and the jurors.
Trump still cannot discuss multiple categories of people related to the case. But he is now free to resume speaking out about Daniels and his former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, two key witnesses whom Trump has previously targeted in venomous terms.
Whether he will do so on Thursday remains to be seen. Sources familiar with Trump’s debate prep told NBC that he is being advised to focus on core issues and policies. But “no one tells Donald what to do,” one of those sources noted.
Lingering restrictions
The recent focus on Trump’s hush money gag order has obscured the fact that at least two others still appear to be in effect.
Judge Arthur Engoron imposed a gag order on Trump in early October, on the second day of his civil business fraud case in Manhattan. Engoron barred Trump and other parties in the case from speaking about court personnel after the former president repeatedly disparaged the judge’s principal law clerk.
Engoron in mid-February ordered Trump to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and interest following the trial, in which New York Attorney General Letitia James accused Trump and others of lying on business records about his asset values in order to boost his net worth and score financial perks.
That judgment is on hold after Trump appealed the ruling and posted a reduced bond of $175 million. But Engoron’s gag order is technically still in effect, as it contained no self-canceling mechanism and no request to lift it was filed after the trial ended.
Practically speaking, however, that gag order is unlikely to limit Trump during his debate with Biden. And if his remarks did violate its restrictions, there’s no guarantee that Engoron’s court would seek a punishment.
When…
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