New York Appeals Court Rejects Trump’s Gag Order Challenge Again

A New York appellate court on Thursday rejected an appeal from former President Donald Trump, who sought to lift the gag order imposed on him earlier this year in his New York criminal hush money trial.

The court’s decision means that a version of the gag order — as amended in June — remains in place for now.

The former president has been largely unsuccessful in fighting the order imposed by Judge Juan Merchan, who oversaw the historic trial that ended in a conviction for Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business documents. The case revolved around a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels made by Trump’s former personal attorney, Michael Cohen, allegedly at his direction.

Trump is barred from attacking prosecutors and court staff, and from revealing any identifying information about the jurors. The gag order never barred him from speaking about Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The amendment in June lifted parts of the original order, allowing Trump to attack witnesses including Daniels and Cohen, and to speak about the jurors in ways that do not reveal any personal information, but cited safety concerns about removing other parts.

The appeals court determined that in that move Merchan had “properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm.”

Throughout the seven-week trial, Trump was found to have violated the gag order 10 times, resulting in a $10,000 fine.

At the time of Trump’s conviction on May 30, Merchan set his sentencing date for July 11.

A July 1 Supreme Court ruling, however, threw a wrench into the plan. The high court determined that a U.S. president has “absolute immunity” for “official” actions he takes as part of his core constitutional powers.

Merchan is expected to weigh in on how the Supreme Court’s immunity decision applies to Trump’s hush money case in September.

Trump’s new sentencing date is set for Sept. 18.