NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump said he remains muzzled by a silence order following his conviction in his criminal trial on hush money charges. His lawyer said he believed the silence order was supposed to expire with the verdict and that he might seek clarification from the court.
“I’m under a gag order, a nasty gag order,” the former president said Friday while speaking to reporters at Trump Tower. Referring to the prosecution’s star witness, Michael Cohen, Trump said, “I’m not allowed to use his name because of the silence.”
But although he said he still believed he would be subject to the order barring comments about witnesses and others connected to his case, Trump again lashed out at his former lawyer-turned-room-foe. hearing.
Without naming Cohen, Trump called him “sleazy,” using the same language that the Manhattan district attorney’s office had flagged before the trial as a possible violation.
“Everybody knows that. It took me a while to find out,” Trump added during a 33-minute speech in which he railed against the guilty verdict and repeated unfounded claims that his rival, President Joe Biden, had influenced the prosecution.
Trump was convicted Thursday of 34 counts of falsifying business records stemming from what prosecutors said was an attempt to conceal a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. She claims to have had a sexual relationship with Trump a decade earlier, which he denies. He is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11.
Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, said Friday that it was his understanding that the silence order would be lifted when the trial concluded with a verdict, because that’s how prosecutors phrased their request when they requested the restrictions in February.
But, according to Blanche, he thinks Trump is still trying to be cautious because he doesn’t really know if this actually happened. During the trial, Judge Juan M. Merchan found Trump in contempt of court, fined him $10,000 for violating the silence order and threatened to put him in jail if he did it again.
“I don’t want President Trump to violate the gag order,” Blanche said. “I don’t think that applies anymore. “I feel like the trial is over and he shouldn’t do this.”
“It’s a bit of a theater of the absurd at this point, isn’t it? “Michael Cohen is no longer a witness in this trial,” Blanche added. “The trial is over. The same with all the other witnesses. So, we’ll see. In no way do I mean that this is disrespectful to the judge and the process. I just want to be careful and understand when this no longer applies.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the state court system said, “The order is part of the court record that has been made public and it speaks for itself. The statement did not specify which part of the order this meant, although in issuing the order, Merchan noted that prosecutors had requested the restrictions “for the duration of the trial.”
A message seeking comment was left with the Manhattan district attorney’s office.
Merchan imposed silence on March 26, weeks before the trial began, after prosecutors expressed concerns about the presumptive Republican presidential nominee’s propensity to attack people involved in his affairs. This barred him from publicly commenting on witnesses, jurors and others connected to his hush money case.
Later merchant expanded it ban comments about own family after Trump posted messages on social media attacking the judge’s daughterDemocratic political consultant, and made false statements about her.
Trump’s use of the term “sleazebag” to describe Cohen just before the trial dismissed prosecutors, but was not considered a violation of the silence order by the judge. Merchan refused to sanction Trump for an April 10 social media post that referred to Cohen and Daniels, another key prosecution witness, with the slur.
The judge said at the time that Trump’s claim that he was responding to Cohen’s previous messages that criticized him was “enough to give him pause” about whether prosecutors met their burden by demonstrating that the message was prohibited.
A state appeals court this month rejected Trump’s request to lift all or part of the gag order during the trial, ruling that Merchan correctly determined that Trump’s public statements “constituted a threat important for the integrity of testimony and potential witnesses.
The state’s mid-level appeals court ruled that “Merchan properly weighed” Trump’s free speech rights against “the historic commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases and the right of persons connected or indirectly connected with criminal proceedings to be free.” against threats, intimidation, harassment and harm.
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Associated Press reporter Jill Colvin contributed to this report.