An expanded gag order bars Trump from statements about his hush-money judge’s family members.On Wednesday, Trump’s previous attacks on the judge’s daughter remained on his Truth Social account.Last year, another New York judge threatened Trump with jail under similar circumstances.
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Donald Trump’s Truth Social account still includes week-old posts that falsely criticize the daughter of his hush-money judge — despite a gag order barring such statements.The pair of posts, from March 27, remained on Trump’s scroll on Wednesday morning.In both, Trump claims that the political-consultant daughter of New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan had posted an illustration on her X account depicting Trump in jail.A court official said in a press statement last week that the X account Trump referenced was a hoax account.Last year, another New York judge, state Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, threatened Trump with “possible imprisonment” after a post that violated the gag order in his civil fraud trial was not removed from the GOP frontrunner’s campaign website.Trump’s lawyers explained that the gag-violating post, which attacked Engoron’s principal law clerk by name and photo, had remained on the website inadvertently.Engoron ultimately hit Trump with a $5,000 gag-violation fine instead of jail. But he noted in a sternly-worded ruling that “In the current overheated climate, incendiary untruths can, and in some cases already have, led to serious physical harm, and worse.”A spokesperson for the state court system declined to comment on the posts attacking Merchan’s daughter remaining on Trump’s Truth Social account.Trump’s New York hush-money trial — his first of four criminal cases to go to trial — remains on track for jury selection April 15.The charges allege Trump falsified 34 business documents to hide a hush-money payment he made to porn actress Stormy Daniels only 11 days before the 2016 election.
Trump faces anywhere from no jail to four years in prison if convicted, though experts have said that imprisonment is unlikely.An attorney for Trump did not immediately respond to a request for comment on this story.Loren Merchan, the judge’s daughter, runs a Chicago-based, left-leaning political consultancy firm, Authentic Campaigns, that has represented such A-list Democrats as Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.Trump’s “Truths” claiming Merchan “posted a picture of me behind bars” were posted March 27.Those posts did not violate the more limited gag order in place at the time, Judge Merchan ruled.But on Monday, he cited these and related Trump posts in expanding the gag order. The gag now specifically bars statements against the family members of the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.On Tuesday, Trump’s lawyers, who are not covered by the gag order, continued to attack Loren Merchan in a court filing demanding the judge’s recusal.As a left-leaning political consultant, the daughter is “making money” off of her father’s anti-Trump hush-money rulings, the defense alleges.Judge Merchan is expected to address the recusal request — Trump’s second in eight months — this week.Trump’s previous recusal request, which the judge rejected in August, had similarly complained that Loren Merchan’s political work created a conflict of interest for her father.In arguing against recusal Tuesday, Manhattan prosecutors noted that a state ethics committee had in August found there was no conflict.”A relative’s independent political activities do not provide a reasonable basis to question the judge’s impartiality,” prosecutors countered, quoting from the ethics committee’s findings.
