Justin Lane/Pool/AFP/Getty Images
Former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump attends his criminal trial at Manhattan Criminal Court in New York City on May 30, 2024.
CNN
—
The New York State Supreme Court has rejected an appeal against a gag order in Donald Trump’s hush money lawsuit, according to a list of decisions published on Tuesday.
A gag order issued by Judge Juan Marchan in the criminal case against President Trump remains in effect.
Meanwhile, President Trump has asked that the gag order be lifted against Marchan ahead of his scheduled sentencing in July. The former president was convicted on 34 counts of business fraud in connection with hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
Trump’s lawyer, Todd Branche, declined to comment.
In March, just before the trial was set to begin, Judge Marchan granted prosecutors’ request for a gag order barring Trump from speaking publicly about witnesses, jurors, prosecutors, court officials or their families in the case. Trump was not barred from commenting about the judge or Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Judge Marchan fined Trump $10,000 and found him in criminal contempt for violating the gag order 10 times earlier in the trial, suggesting he could be forced to jail him if he continued to violate it.
According to court spokesman Gary Spencer, Trump must file a motion for leave to appeal within 30 days, which would be another avenue that would allow the court to take up the case, and the court would then decide again whether to take up the case.
In filings with the appeals court, Trump’s lawyers argued that the case raises “significant constitutional questions of extraordinary importance.”
“This speech order restricts President Trump’s core political speech on issues of vital importance at the height of a presidential campaign in which he is the front-runner, and therefore violates the fundamental right of all American voters to hear from a leading candidate for president on issues of vital importance to the nation,” his lawyers wrote.
Trump’s lawyers said that while the trial is over, the case still raises significant constitutional questions, adding that the gag order does not have an end date.
If the appeals court finds the speech censorship order unconstitutional, Trump’s lawyers wrote, it would “undermine the legitimacy” of the fines Trump received for his violations.
In its own filing, Bragg’s office argued that Trump has a “well-documented history of making threatening, inflammatory and defamatory statements to participants in proceedings” and urged the court to dismiss the appeal.
This story has been updated with additional details.
