Donald Trump has been banned from attacking a judge’s family who have become the target of the former President’s abuse.
Justice Juan M. Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s hush money case, amended the 78-year-old’s gag order to include his daughter Loren, whom Trump had criticised online.
He called Loren a “Rabid Trump Hater” due to her work as a political consultant at a firm with Democratic clients.
Trump also accused Loren of using a photo of him in jail as her profile picture online, however, it was revealed in court that another person had uploaded that picture.
Under the order, Trump is barred from making public statements about jurors, witnesses and others linked to the case.
Donald Trump has been banned from attacking a judge's family
Reuters“This pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose,” Judge Merchan wrote.
“It merely injects fear in those assigned or called to participate in the proceedings that not only they, but their family members as well, are ‘fair game’, for Defendant’s vitriol.”
He added: “All citizens, called upon to participate in these proceedings, whether as a juror, a witness, or in some other capacity, must now concern themselves not only with their own personal safety, but with the safety and the potential for personal attacks upon their loved ones. That reality cannot be overstated.”
Despite protecting their families, the order does not cover Merchan himself or the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who brought the criminal case against the former President.
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Bragg’s office called the protection “amply warranted.” Acknowledging Trump’s track record of issuing “threatening and alarming remarks,” Bragg’s team warned of “the harms that those family members have suffered.”
Last week, Trump slammed Merchan’s daughter online, stating that she is a “a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me.”
He also criticised Justice Merchan, condemning him as “totally compromised”.
Trump could face jail time if he does not obey the expanded gag order. His lawyers have fought the order, reasoning that Trump was engaging in a political campaign speech.
He will become the first-ever former US President to go on trial for criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels.
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche said it was unfair for Trump to stand trial while he runs for President.
The former US President rump slammed Merchan’s daughter online, stating that she is 'a Rabid Trump Hater'
ReutersHe said: “He shouldn't have to sit for a trial now because (prosecutors) chose to bring this case a year ago and not three years ago.”
In a press conference outside the court, Trump told reporters that the hush money case against him was a “pure case of voter intimidation and election interference”.
He added: “This was a case that could have been brought three-and-a-half years ago and they decided to wait now, just during the election, so that I won't be able to campaign.”
If the hush money trial starts in April, it would be the first of Trump’s four criminal trials to begin, and potentially the only one to occur before the presidential election.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records to hide his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to silence adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says they had a decade earlier, an encounter Trump denies.