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Left: Donald Trump speaks after voting in the Florida primary election in Palm Beach, Fla., in March 2024. (AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee). Right: Acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan poses for a picture in his chambers (AP Photo/Seth Wenig).
New York’s highest court has one again tossed out Donald Trump’s gag order appeal because “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved,” the latest blow in the former president’s attempts to lift restrictions on his ability to criticize his hush-money trial judge’s Democratic political consultant daughter and others ahead of a currently scheduled November sentencing.
If it feels like you’ve seen this before, that may be because you have.
In June, the New York Court of Appeals first rejected a Trump appeal to lift the gag order in his hush-money case, which is still in place, albeit partially, after he was found guilty in May of 34 felony falsification of business records counts. The defense responded by mounting yet another appeal, bringing their complaints about acting New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan to the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division, First Department.
A unanimous denial followed in August, as the court defended Merchan’s “narrowly tailored protections,” concluding that the judge “did not act in excess of jurisdiction” when he ordered Trump to “refrain” from “making or directing others to make public statements” about “family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney, if those statements are made with the intent to materially interfere with, or cause others to materially interfere” with their work.
The appellate court, agreeing that there was evidence of ongoing threats to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg’s (D) staff, called Trump’s position “unavailing,” since courts are “empowered to protect against the ‘unfair administration of justice”” until sentencing or “some other final disposition” takes place.
“Contrary to petitioner’s contentions, the People’s evidentiary submissions in opposition to his motion in Supreme Court demonstrate that threats received by District Attorney staff after the jury verdict continued to pose a significant and imminent threat,” the appellate division said.
Now, more than one month later, the New York Court of Appeals, has once again rejected Trump’s appeal without much of an explanation other than a line saying there was “no substantial constitutional question […] directly involved.”
Trump and his allies have long argued, without success, that the gag order runs afoul of the First Amendment.
