New York court denies Trump gag order appeal in hush money case

A New York appeals court on Thursday denied former President Donald Trump's bid to dismiss the partial gag order against him in his criminal case.

Trump had argued the gag order was unnecessary and should be dismissed after his conviction in May on 34 counts of falsifying business records related to a hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels in the closing days of the 2016 campaign.

A five-judge panel of the state Appellate Division, a mid-level appeals court, disagreed. It backed a ruling by Judge Juan Merchan that the order should remain in place until sentencing, which the judges called “a critical stage of the criminal proceeding.”

Merchan had lifted some of the gag order's restrictions in June, freeing Trump to comment on witnesses who testified against him in the weeks-long trial, but left in place part of the order barring Trump from going after court staff members, individual prosecutors and “family members of any counsel, staff member, the Court or the District Attorney.”

Both the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, whose office prosecuted the case, were never subjects of the order, but Merchan had expanded the restrictions on family members after Trump's repeated criticisms of the judge's daughter and the DA's wife.

Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung complained at the time that it was an "unlawful decision by a highly conflicted judge" that was “preventing President Trump from speaking freely about Judge Merchan’s disqualifying conflicts.”

The appeals court ruling noted it had rejected Trump's earlier appeal of the gag order after finding Merchan had "properly weighed petitioner’s First Amendment Rights against the court’s historical commitment to ensuring the fair