Hush money trial judge imposes gag order on Donald Trump

Judge Juan Merchan ordered the former president not to attack potential witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, their families or prospective jurors.

Donald Trump in New York this week. Picture: AFP

NEW YORK: The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s trial for allegedly making pre-election hush money payments to a porn star on Tuesday slapped a partial gag order on the former president.

Judge Juan Merchan ordered Mr Trump not to publicly attack potential witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, their families or prospective jurors.

The move came just hours after the presumptive Republican nominee lashed out at the judge and his daughter in a series of posts on Truth Social.

The 77-year-old Mr Trump described Judge Merchan as a “true and certified Trump hater who suffers from a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome”.

“In other words, he hates me,” Mr Trump said. “Judge Merchan should recuse himself, he cannot give me a fair trial.”

The former president also said Judge Merchan’s daughter was “a senior executive at a Super Liberal Democrat firm.”

Judge Merchan is the third judge overseeing a case against Mr Trump to issue a gag order. Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over a business fraud case in New York that resulted in a $US454m fine for Mr Trump, also issued a limited gag order. So did district judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, who is overseeing the federal case against Mr Trump on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election results.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the hush money case against Mr Trump, had asked Judge Merchan last month to issue a “narrowly tailored” gag order to “protect the integrity of this criminal proceeding”.

Judge Merchan said Mr Trump was free to comment about the judge himself and Mr Bragg but not the other prosecutors in the case.

Steven Cheung, a Trump spokesman, denounced the gag order. “Judge Merchan’s unconstitutional gag order prevents president Trump – the leading candidate for president of the United States -- from engaging in core political speech,” Mr Cheung said.

In his order, Judge Merchan noted that Mr Trump had a history of making public statements that were “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating”.

“The uncontested record reflecting the defendant’s prior extrajudicial statements establishes a sufficient risk to the administration of justice,” the judge said.

Judge Merchan’s move comes one day after he set April 15 as the date for the start of the first ever criminal trial of a former president.

AFP