As Acting New York State Supreme Court Judge, Juan Merchan, who is trying Donald Trump’s hush money criminal case, imposed a gag order on the former president, Mary Trump, a clinical psychologist, author and podcaster, weighed in on how different it from the previous gag orders.
What Happened: “Judge Merchan ordered that Donald Trump refrain from ‘making or directing others to make public statements about known or reasonably foreseeable witnesses concerning their potential participation’ in the falsifying business records case, as well as about individual prosecutors, court staff, juror and potential jurors,” Mary Trump noted.
Merchan was forced to act after Donald Trump lashed out at him and his daughter in a social media post, she said. Ahead of this, prosecutors had sought to impose gag orders on the former president, citing his “long-standing history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges and others involved in legal proceedings against him,” she added.
The hush-money election interference case against Donald Trump is “shaping up to a worst-case scenario for him,” said Mary Trump. The psychologist said, “It forces him to be in a courtroom during the height of the campaign and his historically rude and entitled in-court behavior will be on full display before the media, and the rest of the country.”
The decision to attack the judge and his family a mere three weeks before jury selection is slated to begin is a “decision he might soon regret,” Mary Trump said.
Why It’s Important: Unlike in the Manhattan civil fraud case, where Judge Arthur Engoron ordered a “more narrow” limited gag order, which pertained to only verbal attacks on court staff, Judge Merchan’s order covers additional groups of people involved in the court process, including witnesses and even potential witnesses, Mary Trump noted.
Citing lawyer Joe Gallina, she said, that flouting of the latest gag orders could land her uncle in jail, given the court’s observation of his prior extrajudicial statements. “It seems very unlikely this judge will allow Donald to violate this order again and again when he already has a long history of being warned,” she said.
“The more stress he feels from being prevented from saying or doing whatever he wants will push his rhetoric to become even more violent and extreme,” Mary Trump said. Also, the gag order limits his ability to control the narrative and poison the court of public opinion, she said.
“By taking away Donald's ability to go on the attack against court staff and witnesses, Merchan is inadvertently stripping Donald of one of his go-to tools to keep his base angry and try to make inroads with disillusioned independents,” she added.
Donald Trump is narrowly ahead of President Joe Biden in several nationwide opinion polls as it is nearly certain that the two will face off in a rematch in November.
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