Donald Trump’s gag order violation saga just took another turn after his New York criminal trial
In each of Donald Trump’s trials, he has a consistent habit of violating his gag order right up until the point where the judge threatens to lock him up, after which Trump meekly obeys the gag order for the remainder of the trial. We saw this in the E. Jean Carroll trial, where Trump was warned about jail time and then waited until after the trial ended (and the gag order expired) before resuming his attacks on Carroll.
We’ve also seen it with Trump’s New York criminal trial. He mouthed off until Judge Merchan threatened to lock him up, after which he shut up until the trial was over. Now Trump is once again attacking the witnesses from the trial. But the catch is that the trial isn’t technically over.
Because Trump was found guilty, he still has sentencing coming up and such, which means the trial gag order is still on the books. But Trump doesn’t seem to know this. Accordingly, his attorneys filed a request today for the gag order to be lifted, citing the fact that the witnesses have already testified.
It’s not clear what Judge Merchan will do with the request. But what is interesting is that today’s filing is an admission on the part of Trump’s legal team that Trump has indeed been violating the gag order since the trial ended. This can be used against him at sentencing.
It’ll be difficult for Trump to get up during his sentencing hearing and argue that he didn’t know he was still under gag order when he started attacking witnesses after the trial, when his own attorneys are acknowledging in this filing that they know he’s still under gag order. And so whatever the odds of Trump getting a prison sentence are, they probably just went up a little.
