By Martha McHardy
US News Reporter
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Donald Trump's lawyers are asking New York's highest court to intervene in the former president's fight over a hush money trial gag order that has landed him with $10,000 fines and threats of jail time.
The former president's defense attorneys failed to get the order banning Trump from commenting on witnesses and jurors thrown out by New York's midlevel appellate court and are now taking their request to the city's Court of Appeals. They filed a notice of appeal Wednesday, which was listed on a court docket, but the document itself was sealed.
"President Trump has filed a notice to appeal the unconstitutional and un-American gag order imposed by conflicted Judge Juan Merchan in the lawless Manhattan DA case," Trump presidential campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said.
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"The threat to throw the 45th President of the United States and the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election in jail for exercising his First Amendment rights is a Third World authoritarian tactic typical of crooked Joe Biden and his comrades," he added.
Trump was hit with the gag order in March, preventing him from commenting publicly about witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and jurors in his hush money trial, in which he denies 34 felony counts of falsifying documents. He is accused of hiding payments covering a fee to adult film actress Stormy Daniels for her silence before the 2016 presidential election about an affair with the former president, all of which he denies.
Since then, Trump has been accused of breaking the gag order on ten separate occasions, the latest of which came last week when he was held in contempt of court for a second time and fined $1,000 by Judge Juan Merchan, who threatened him with jail time.
"It appears that the $1,000 fines are not serving as a deterrent. Going forward, this court will have to consider a jail sanction," Judge Merchan told Trump.
The appellate court refused the Trump team request to have the restrictions imposed on the former president lifted or modified on Tuesday, arguing that Judge Merchan had "properly determined" that Trump's public statements "posed a significant threat to the integrity of the testimony of witnesses and potential witnesses in this case as well."
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Trump's lawyers have previously argued that the former president's posts were responding to "political" attacks, but have so far failed to offer up any examples of what, exactly, Trump was responding to.
His violations have included several attacks on his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen, who will testify for a third day Thursday. In an April 13 social media post, Trump wrote: "Has disgraced attorney and felon Michael Cohen been prosecuted for LYING? Only TRUMP people get prosecuted by this Judge and these thugs!"
Judge Merchan has also flagged reposts Trump made of a New York Post article that described Cohen as a "serial perjurer," and a post quoting Fox News host Jesse Watters' claim that liberal activists were lying to infiltrate the jury, as well as an April 22 interview Trump did with television channel Real America's Voice in which he criticized the speed at which the jury was picked and claimed, without evidence, that it was stacked with Democrats.
Trump has repeatedly sought to use the gag order to raise money for his political campaign by criticizing the criminal justice system, which he has previously baselessly asserted is unfair and biased against him.
The appeals court ruled on Tuesday that Judge Merchan "properly weighed" Trump's free speech rights against the "historical commitment to ensuring the fair administration of justice in criminal cases, and the right of persons related or tangentially related to the criminal proceedings from being free from threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm."
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