Former president Donald Trump’s lawyers asked the Manhattan judge presiding over their client’s hush-money trial to lift the gag order, saying there’s no valid reason to keep it in place following last week’s guilty verdict.
In a premotion letter submitted on Monday, Trump attorney Todd Blanche requested that Judge Juan Merchan terminate the gag order in light of the presumptive Republican nominee’s 2024 campaign.
“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 — who remains the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election — and the American people,” Blanche wrote. The letter was made public on Tuesday.
In addition to the First Amendment, Blanche cited several other reasons for lifting the gag order. He argued that Trump’s “constitutional mandate for unrestrained campaign advocacy” is stronger now because of the Biden campaign’s anti-Trump presser outside the courthouse, President Biden’s public comments regarding the verdict, public attacks from witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, and the June 27 presidential debate.
The gag order prevents the former president from speaking publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, and jurors involved in the case or their relatives. Trump’s legal team repeatedly sought to have the gag order lifted, as they disagreed with its application, but their previous requests were denied.
“The defense does not concede that there was ever a valid basis for the gag order and reserves the right to challenge the irreparable First Amendment harms caused by the order,” a footnote in the letter reads.
During the trial last month, Merchan fined Trump $10,000 for violating the order by posting disparaging comments about jurors and witnesses on Truth Social and his campaign website. In the event of future violations, Merchan threatened the defendant with jail time.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called for the judge’s lifting of the gag order, which he labeled “unconstitutional and un-American.”
“As made clear by President Trump and his legal team, the wrongful gag order was a big part of how the Manhattan sham trial was rigged and should be lifted immediately,” Cheung told Fox News, which first reported on the letter.
On Thursday, Trump was found guilty on all 34 felony charges for falsifying business records in relation to a $130,000 payment that Cohen paid Daniels to buy her silence for an alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump 18 years ago. The jury’s verdict made him the first president in U.S. history to be convicted of a crime.
Trump faces up to four years in prison, though it’s possible the judge will place him on probation. His sentencing date is scheduled for July 11, four days before the start of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wis., where he is expected to be formally nominated as the 2024 Republican presidential nominee.
Trump, who believes the hush-money case is politically motivated, vowed to pursue an appeal and even urged the Supreme Court to act ahead of his July sentencing.
“The ‘Sentencing’ for not having done anything wrong will be, conveniently for the Fascists, 4 days before the Republican National Convention,” he wrote in a Truth Social post on Sunday before verbally attacking Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg. “A Radical Left Soros backed D.A., who ran on a platform of ‘I will get Trump,’ reporting to an ‘Acting’ Local Judge, appointed by the Democrats, who is HIGHLY CONFLICTED, will make a decision which will determine the future of our Nation? The United States Supreme Court MUST DECIDE!”
Likewise, Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) called on the Supreme Court to intervene and overturn the verdict because of its unprecedented nature.