Does prohibiting Donald Trump from speaking about people linked to the case against him violate the Constitution? Legally not, declares constitutional lawyer and former prosecutor Sabino Jauregui. However, the expert mentions that there is a very fine line and that the former president and Republican candidate adheres to to assert his rights.
“This is something that judges do routinely in federal cases,” he explains about the gag law imposed on the former president.
The gag order prohibits him from making public comments about witnesses, jurors or others connected to the case in New York, where he is accused of trying to illegally influence the 2016 election by paying publications and individuals to suppress unfavorable news stories about him. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
“What they are trying to do is prevent there from being any type of interference and making the witnesses feel threatened or intimidated, so many times they (the judges) bring these charges, sometimes even to us lawyers,” he explained in an interview with DIARIO LAS AMÉRICAS the lawyer Jauregui. “The reason you do that is so as not to interfere with a trial, not to intimidate witnesses and not to try to influence jurors who might be watching newscasts or reading newspapers.”
Trump had to pay a $9,000 fine this week for making comments on his social network Truth Social and his campaign website about people linked to the case against him. On Tuesday, Judge Juan M. Merchán warned that if Trump continued to ignore his orders, the court “will impose a punishment of imprisonment.”
“They don’t want me campaigning,” Trump told reporters.
Crossing that line could lead to a violation of the Constitution, since it would restrict all rights of the former president, who has been prevented by these trials from carrying out a free campaign.
“Now (the bans) have to be limited because if not, they begin to violate the first amendment and that is what Trump is complaining about. Because he argues that they are going against his rights and trying to interfere in his electoral campaign,” Jauregui added.
Trump insists he is only exercising his right to free speech, but he still deleted the violating comments from his Truth Social account and his campaign website. Merchán is studying other complaints that Trump violated the gag order, and will hear arguments, but prosecutor Christopher Conroy has already urged that Trump be fined again with a maximum of $1,000 for each of the four new violations of his order.
“We are not asking for jail time yet,” he warned. “The defendant willingly and knowingly violated the order,” Conroy said, before adding that the Republican presidential candidate “thinks the rules should be different for him.”
Todd Blanche, Trump’s lawyer, noted that Trump is the Republican presidential candidate in the November election and that his likely rival, Democrat Joe Biden, has spoken publicly about the trial.
How can Trump counter these measures? For the jurist, Donald Trump can’t do much.
“It’s difficult, I guess it’s difficult because he has to go to that trial every day and this doesn’t allow him to go out and do his campaign,” Jauregui continued. “It is complicated, however, it is not limited because the judge is letting Trump talk about him (judge), criticize him as well as the prosecutor. He is preventing him from talking about witnesses, from talking about the family of the people who work in the court. The judge’s argument is to protect the people who work in the court. But it is delicate to cross the line of the first amendment and the right to have a trial without interference.”
double edged sword
The former president and candidate for the White House in next November’s elections faces several lawsuits against him. At the moment he is in New York, due to accusations that he paid to prevent public revelations.
These judicial proceedings against the former president may be favorable for him and not so much for the Democrats in this campaign, although it may sound counterproductive. This is what Sabino Jauregui says.
“These types of lawsuits and things help him (Trump) politically and the more lawsuits they throw at him, the more they will definitely help him with his campaign,” adds the lawyer.
Trump has denounced that these trials are nothing more than a “witch hunt,” as he is the first former president in United States history to face criminal charges.
For two weeks, Trump has attended hours of testimony, sometimes technical, visibly angry with the judge, who has required him to be present every day.
The former president has turned the avalanche of media that awaits him at the entrance and exit of the hearings into a phenomenal speaker to be in the public opinion every day.
