The U.S. Court of Appeals in New York declined to hear former President Donald Trump‘s appeal to the gag order in his criminal hush money case Tuesday, though the court left the option for an appeal in the future open.
The court wrote it would not hear the appeal because “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.” The decision comes after Trump was found guilty by a Manhattan jury last month on 34 counts of falsifying business records, though the gag order has remained in place ahead of his July 11 sentencing.
Trump’s lawyers have simultaneously asked presiding Judge Juan Merchan to lift the order after the conviction, arguing that the state and the court “do not justify restrictions on the First Amendment rights of President Trump” now that the trial has concluded.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office opposed Trump’s more recent request to Merchan, writing that the order wasn’t just needed to “avoid threats to the fairness of the trial itself” but on the court’s “broader ‘obligation to prevent actual harm to the integrity of the proceedings.'”
During the trial, the gag order was expanded to cover the family of Merchan after Trump said the judge should be removed from the case over his daughter’s work for elected Democrats who have made railing against Trump’s legal woes part of their platforms.
Trump was also fined and held in contempt 10 times throughout the trial for violating the gag order, actions that legal experts say could factor into how the judge sentences him on the morning of July 11.
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Steve Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, said Trump and his lawyers would continue to fight against the “unconstitutional” gag order. He added that the gag order “wrongfully silences the leading candidate for President of the United States, President Trump, at the height of his campaign.”
“The gag order applies only to President Trump and not to any of his political opponents, critics, or even crooked Joe Biden. The election interfering gag order violates the First Amendment rights of President Trump and all American voters, who have a fundamental right to hear his message,” Cheung said.
