Trump Lashes Out After Judge Expands Gag Order

(RepublicanNews.org) – After being hit with another gag order by the judge overseeing the hush money trial in New York, former President Donald Trump blasted the judge, calling the order unfair when others were allowed to talk about him.

On Tuesday, April 2nd, Judge Juan Merchan issued a new gag order against Trump. Merchan is the judge overseeing the trial of the former president regarding claims that he used one of his attorneys to pay off Stormy Daniels in 2016 to keep silent about an affair between them. The expansion of the gag order came in response to a post that Trump made about the judge’s daughter, Democratic political consultant Loren Merchan.

The judge said that the “pattern” of attacking the family members of jurists and lawyers working cases against the former president “serves no legitimate purpose.” Merchan said Trump’s tactics inject fear in whoever is “assigned or called to participate” in proceedings against the former president, and that all of them, including members of their families, become “fair game” for Trump’s “vitriol.”

Trump responded to the judge’s decision on his social media platform Truth Social and called Merchan “another corrupt New York Judge” and accused him of trying to stop the former president from talking about “corruption and conflicts” happening in the courtroom. Trump noted how they could talk about him, but he could not “talk about them,” which he doesn’t believe to be fair.

The original gag order imposed on Trump only limited the remarks he could make about witnesses, jurors, and counsel or staff members and their families, but did not include Merchan’s family or that of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg. The updated order covers both the judge’s family and Bragg’s.

The former president also called for Merchan to “be recused” and for the case to “be thrown out.” He said there’s “never been a more conflicted judge” than Merchan and called the situation “election interference.” Trump maintains that all of the legal battles he now faces are part of a concerted effort to keep him from returning to the White House.

Copyright 2024, RepublicanNews.org