The judge presiding over Donald Trump‘s impending New York criminal trial expanded a partial gag order Monday night following the former president’s online attacks against his daughter.
State Judge Juan Merchan said Trump is barred from attacking his family members and those of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, in addition to the witnesses, prosecutors, court staff members and their relatives whom he was directed to “refrain” from talking about in a previous gag order issued last week.
Trump’s “pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose. 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,” Merchan said Monday. “It is no longer just a mere possibility or a reasonable likelihood that there exists a threat to the integrity of the judicial proceedings. The threat is very real.”
Trump’s actions, he wrote, could have a chilling effect on a case that’s just two weeks from the trial start date.
“The average observer must now, after hearing Defendant’s recent attacks, draw the conclusion that if they become involved in these proceedings, even tangentially, they should