DA suggests Donald Trump violated gag order with post about daughter of hush-money trial judge

NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan prosecutors suggested Friday that Donald Trump violated a gag order in his hush-money criminal case this week by assailing the judge’s daughter and making a false claim about her on social media.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office asked Judge Juan M. Merchan to “clarify or confirm” the scope of the gag order, which he issued Tuesday, and to direct the former president and presumptive Republican nominee to “immediately desist from attacks on family members.”

In a letter to Merchan, Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass argued that the gag order’s ban on statements meant to interfere with or harass the court’s staff or their families makes the judge’s daughter off-limits from Trump’s rhetoric. He said Trump should be punished for further violations.

Trump’s lawyers contended the D.A.'s office is misinterpreting the order and said it doesn’t prohibit him from commenting about Loren Merchan, a political consultant whose firm has worked on campaigns for Trump’s rival. President Joe Biden, and other Democrats.

“The Court cannot ‘direct’ President Trump to do something that the gag order does not require,” Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles wrote to Merchan in a response to the prosecution’s letter. “To ‘clarify or confirm’ the meaning of the gag order in the way the People suggest would be to expand it.”

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