Donald Trump can now speak out against witnesses and the jury from his New York criminal trial without violating a gag order. With the verdict rendered, Judge Juan Merchan terminated that portion of the order Tuesday.
The order is still in place for lawyers and staff (besides District Attorney Alvin Bragg), court staff (besides Merchan himself) and their family members (including Bragg’s and Merchan’s families). That’s because the overall proceeding is ongoing ahead of Trump’s July 11 sentencing. Until then, Merchan wrote, those parties “must continue to perform their lawful duties free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm.”
Following the guilty verdict, prosecutors didn’t oppose terminating the order as it applied to witnesses but did want to keep protections for jurors. Merchan wrote that he wanted to keep protecting them, too, but could no longer do so via the gag order at this stage. He noted, however, that separate protections regulating disclosure of juror information are still in effect, so Trump remains limited in that regard.
Merchan previously found the defendant in contempt 10 times and fined him for violating the order. Last week New York state’s top court rejected Trump’s appeal challenging the order.
The narrowing of Merchan’s order is a reminder that it served a limited but important purpose: to protect the integrity of the proceedings. So Trump can now make statements that he couldn’t lawfully have made during the trial; and when the order is finally terminated, Trump can make further statements that could’ve carried legal consequences under the order.
That doesn’t mean that he can violate any other laws that might apply (which he was never allowed to do). Ultimately, not every dangerous statement that Trump makes will violate the law or a court order. The court of public opinion, however, is always free to judge the remarks of the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, who’s set to debate President Joe Biden on Thursday.
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