A “gag order” by a New York Manhattan judge that would prevent former President Donald Trump from talking publicly about indictment is “extremely likely” experts have said.
The order — which has a penalty of $1,000, up to 30 days in jail, or both if violated — will be applied either Monday on when Trump is arraigned on Tuesday, a former senior staffer with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office reportedly told Business Insider.
Trump would be unable to share his frequent rants on the criminal case on his Truth Social app or in campaign fundraising emails. He wouldn’t be legally allowed to talk about the case at campaign rallies or during interviews.
“I think it’s not only a possibility, but it’s extremely likely that there will be a gag order in the case,” Duncan Levin told Insider. “Gag orders are very common in criminal cases, particularly in cases where there is an enormous amount of pretrial publicity like this one.”
“This is a criminal case now, so the rules have changed, and the rules are no longer in his purview to make,” Levin said. “He is a criminal defendant and, you know, we see hundreds of thousands of criminal defendants across the country every day who have a lot of rights stripped away from them and he is now one of them. These proceedings are going to change his life.”
Trump’s lawyers and some Republican leaders have blasted the potential gag order on the leading Republican presidential candidate as a violation of his First Amendment rights.
‘The Trump legal team now thinks that the Manhattan judge will take the unprecedented step of silencing the presidential front-runner with an unconstitutional gag order tomorrow,” a source reportedly told The Daily Mail.
“The Trump legal team is considering adding a First Amendment lawyer to the effort to combat this and will fight it all the way.”
“President Trump stands for transparency and our American Constitution, and any attempt to prevent him, the leading candidate for president, from exercising his First Amendment right is a tyrannical, third-world country move which further proves that this is nothing more than a political witch-hunt utilizing a weaponized justice system,” a Trump’s spokeman told The Daily Mail.
“All Americans should be concerned about their rights being violated and any attempt to obstruct President Trump’s right to use his voice in order to speak truth to power should never be tolerated. The whole targeted crusade is a complete political farce by the Manhattan DA meant to manipulate and interfere with an election against President Trump and his supporters.”
The indictment in the Manhattan DA’s investigation into Trump is an unprecedented development. No former U.S. president has ever been charged with a crime.
Numerous other investigations into Trump, including those in Atlanta and Washington, D.C., continue behind the scenes as well and experts have warned they may also soon lead to indictments.
The Horn editorial team