The legal team representing former President Donald Trump reportedly expects that the Manhattan judge will put a gag order on him as the case awaits trial.
A source close to the legal team told the Daily Mail the judge will take an “unprecedented step” to silence the 2024 presidential candidate. The gag order could potentially undercut his ability to campaign on the issue of legal corruption during the primary.
“The Trump legal team now thinks that the Manhattan judge will take the unprecedented step of silencing the presidential frontrunner with an unconstitutional gag order tomorrow,” the source said. “The Trump legal team is considering adding a First Amendment lawyer to the effort to combat this and will fight it all the way.”
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung, in response to the news about a possible gag order, told Breitbart News that the former president stands for the freedom of speech and that Americans should be highly concerned about any efforts like this to stifle free speech.
“President Trump stands for transparency and our American Constitution, and any attempt to prevent him, the leading candidate for President, from exercising his First Amendment right is a tyrannical, third-world country move which further proves that this is nothing more than a political witch-hunt utilizing a weaponized justice system,” Cheung said. “All Americans should be concerned about their rights being violated and any attempt to obstruct President Trump’s right to use his voice in order to speak truth to power should never be tolerated. The whole targeted crusade is a complete political farce by the Manhattan DA meant to manipulate and interfere with an election against President Trump and his supporters.”
Trump breaking the gag order could potentially see him slapped with a $1,000 fine and as many as 30 days in jail, per New York law. Despite the pending order, the former president still plans to make a speech at Mar-a-Lago on Tuesday evening after peacefully submitting himself to the prosecution in New York. Per the Associated Press:
Trump will hold the event at his Mar-a-Lago club after returning from Manhattan, where he is expected to voluntarily turn himself in. He is expected to be joined in Florida by supporters as he tries to project an image of strength and defiance and turn the charges into a political asset to boost his 2024 presidential campaign.
Trump aides and lawyers had been going back and forth over the wisdom of his appearing before reporters after the arraignment as they grasped the news of an indictment that caught many of them by surprise. Trump has been catapulted back into the headlines by the criminal charges and he relishes media attention, and while some of his lawyers would have preferred he stay silent, his campaign believes the development has energized his supporters.
His legal team also plans to file a motion to have the case dismissed immediately.
“We will take the indictment. We will dissect it,” Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina told CNN on Sunday morning. “The team will look at every, every potential issue that we will be able to challenge, and we will challenge. And of course, I very much anticipate a motion to dismiss coming because there’s no law that fits this.”
After the indictment was handed down last week, legal experts floated the idea that Bragg would implement a gag order.
“I think it’s not only a possibility, but it’s extremely likely that there will be a gag order in the case,” Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice, told Insider. “Gag orders are very common in criminal cases, particularly in cases where there is an enormous amount of pretrial publicity like this one.”
As Breitbart News reported, the indictment has catapulted the former president in the 2024 primary polls, putting him well ahead of his closest potential opponent, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
