Trump Can Now Criticize Witnesses Who Testified against Him, Judge Rules

Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s seven-week trial this spring, ruled that Trump is now free to complain about the prosecution’s witnesses, including his former fixer Michael Cohen, The New York times reported.

And once Trump is sentenced on July 1, he can publicly assail others who are now covered by the gag order, including prosecutors and their relatives.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is still subject to a different order prohibiting him from releasing the identities of jurors or publicly attacking them by name.

But under Judge Merchan’s ruling, Trump can now complain broadly about the jury that convicted him.

The judge appeared conflicted about his decision involving the jury on June 25, writing that “it would be this court’s strong preference to extend those protections”, but he said that he felt the law required him to drop the restrictions.

The unwinding of the order could unleash Trump’s wrathful rhetoric about the people involved in the case against him just as he prepares to debate US President Joe Biden this week.

Trump referenced the ruling in a fund-raising appeal and echoed his baseless claims that the outcome of the trial had been predetermined.

“I’m finally FREE to talk about the RIGGED trial that convicted me in New York,” he wrote, adding that the judge’s decision had come “JUST IN TIME FOR MY DEBATE WITH CROOKED JOE!”

Judge Merchan imposed the gag order before the trial began, as Trump berated Cohen, the prosecutors and the Manhattan jury pool, which leans heavily Democratic. During the trial, Trump violated the order 10 times, resulting in $10,000 in fines.

The gag order did not cover Judge Merchan and District Attorney Alvin Bragg personally, though it did prohibit Trump from attacking their families. Before the trial, Trump repeatedly attacked the judge’s daughter, who is a Democratic political consultant.

Judge Merchan, who not only oversaw the former president’s case but also that of Steve Bannon, his fiery adviser, became a focus of criticism for supporters of Trump.

Bannon, who is set to surrender by July 1 on a federal contempt of Congress conviction, faces state charges that he defrauded donors who wanted to contribute money to build a wall along the southern border and is set to go on trial in September.

However, Judge Merchan has been reassigned from that case because of court scheduling conflicts, according to a letter from an administrative judge.

In Trump’s case, he was convicted in late May on all 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to his cover-up of a sex scandal during his 2016 presidential run. The verdict, the first criminal conviction of an American president, made Trump a felon.

At the core of the case was a hush money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels. Cohen paid Daniels US$130,000 (S$176,000) to silence her story of a sexual encounter with Trump, who then falsified the records to conceal his repayment to Cohen.

In a statement on June 25, Cohen played down the importance of the lifting of the order, noting that Trump had spent years “making constant negative statements about me”.

He added that the former president’s “failed strategy of discrediting me so that he can avoid accountability didn’t work then and won’t work now”.

After the verdict, Trump’s lawyers asked the judge to lift the gag order entirely. Prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the case, agreed in a court filing on Friday that the judge could let Trump criticize witnesses but argued that the other major restrictions should remain.

The prosecutors cited a wave of threats against Bragg and his prosecutors.

The New York Police Department logged 56 “actionable threats” against Bragg, his family and employees at the district attorney’s office since early April, according to an affidavit provided with the filing.

Such threats, evidently made by supporters of Trump, included a post disclosing the address of one of Bragg’s employees, and bomb threats made on the first day of the trial targeting two people involved in the case.

Others were homicidal messages directed at Bragg or his employees, including, “We will kill you all”, “You are dead” and “Your life is done”.

Prosecutors said the threats were “directly connected to (the) defendant’s dangerous rhetoric”.

Trump faces up to four years in prison, though he may never see the inside of a cell. Judge Merchan could sentence him to probation or home confinement.