NEW YORK — The highest court in New York did not hear Donald Trump’s appeal of his gag order in his hush-money case on Tuesday. The restrictions will remain in place after he was found guilty of all 34 counts of felony in the trial last month.
The Court of Appeals decided that the order does not bring up “substantial” constitutional issues that need to be dealt with right away.
The decision is the latest legal setback for the former Republican president. He has been protesting against a gag order that keeps him from talking about witnesses, jurors, and other people who were involved in the case for a long time. But it might not last long. The defense wants the gag order to be lifted, and the judge in the case, Juan M. Merchan, is likely to decide soon.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Trump’s campaign, said on Tuesday that the former president’s lawyers would “continue to fight against the unconstitutional Gag Order imposed by Justice Merchan.”
On May 15, during Trump’s historic criminal trial, his lawyers sent a notice of appeal to the state’s highest court. They said that Trump couldn’t say “core political things about issues that were central to his campaign for president” because of the gag order.
The Court of Appeals, though, didn’t agree. This week, the court put out a decision list in which it said it would not automatically hear the case because “no substantial constitutional question is directly involved.”
The lawyers for Trump were basically looking for a quick way to get their appeal heard faster, but the state’s midlevel appeals court turned them down last month. Gary Spencer, a spokesman for the court, says they now have 30 days to file a motion for leave to appeal.
The gag order was issued by Merchan on March 26, a few weeks before the trial began. This was done because prosecutors were worried about the likely Republican presidential nominee’s tendency to attack people who are involved in his cases.
Trump was fined $10,000 by Merchan for breaking the gag order during the trial. He was also held in contempt of court. If Trump did it again, the judge said he would put him in jail.
The order is still in effect weeks after the trial ended. Trump was found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with what prosecutors said was an attempt to hide a payment of hush money to porn actor Stormy Daniels right before the 2016 election. Daniels says she had a sexual encounter with Trump ten years ago, but Trump denies it. He will be given his sentence on July 11.
The office of the Manhattan district attorney had asked the Court of Appeals to turn down the appeal. In their own letter, the prosecutors said that there would be time for post-trial court filings to decide if the order should be lifted.
Trump’s lawyers have said that he should be able to fully talk about the case since both Daniels and his ex-lawyer Michael Cohen have been criticizing him in public for a long time.
After a few days, they wrote to Merchan and asked him to lift the gag order. After that, they made a formal motion last week asking that the restrictions be lifted. The prosecutors have until Thursday to answer. After that, Merchan is likely to make a decision soon after, maybe before Trump’s debate with President Joe Biden on June 27.
“At this point, it’s kind of like the theater of the absurd, right?” “Michael Cohen is no longer a witness in this case,” Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, told the AP earlier this month. “The case is over.”
