The ruling came after Trump openly attacked Judge Juan Merchan and his family in a post on Truth Social, targeting the judge’s daughter in particular.
In his order, which came at the request of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Merchan forbade Trump from speaking publicly about courtroom staff, prosecutors, or any of their family members. Comments about jurors are similarly prohibited, and he cannot make—or order others to make—comments about witnesses. The order does still allow Trump to attack Bragg himself.
In a post on Truth Social earlier in the day, Trump attacked Merchan and his daughter.
“Judge Juan Merchan, a very distinguished looking man, is nevertheless a true and certified Trump Hater who suffers from a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome. In other words, he hates me!” he wrote in a Tuesday morning post. “His daughter is a senior executive at a Super Liberal Democrat firm that works for Adam “Shifty” Schiff, the Democrat National Committee, (Dem)Senate Majority PAC, and even Crooked Joe Biden. He was recently the judge on an unrelated trial of a long term employee, elderly and not in good health.”
“This judge treated him viciously, telling him either you cooperate or I’m putting you in jail for 15 years,” Trump continued. “He pled, and went to jail for very minor offenses, highly unusual, served 4 months in Rikers, and now they are after him again, this time for allegedly lying (doesn’t look like a lie to me!), and they threatened him again with 15 years if he doesn’t say something bad about “TRUMP.” He is devastated and scared! These COUNTRY DESTROYING SCOUNDRELS & THUGS HAVE NO CASE AGAINST ME. WITCH HUNT!”
The whole ordeal is a sign that Trump still hasn’t learned his lesson, even after suffering gag orders in previous trials. In October, Judge Arthur Engoron silenced the former president after he ushered a scourge of far-right vitriol onto Engoron’s chief law clerk. Trump was later fined $15,000 for violating the order. Judge Tanya Chutkan also imposed a gag order on the former president in his D.C. trial, which focuses on his efforts to subvert the 2020 election.
Still, the gag came as welcome news to some of Trump’s other victims, including his former fixer (and one of the expected star witnesses in the trial), Michael Cohen, who said he’s “been under relentless assault from Donald’s MAGA supporters.”
“Nevertheless, knowing Donald as well as I do, he will seek to defy the gag order by employing others within his circle to do his bidding, regardless of consequence,” Cohen told New York Daily News’ Molly Crane-Newman.