Politics
Trump loses latest round of gag order appeal in hush money case at New York’s top court
Donald Trump lost the latest round of his gag order appeal in New Yorkthis time at the state’s Court of Appeals. The rejection of the Republican presidential nominee’s appeal was on the list of motions decided by the top court on Thursday.
Judge Juan Merchan had partially terminated the order after the former president was found guilty in May on all 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree. With the trial over, Merchan ended the order’s restrictions related to trial witnesses and the jury, but he kept them in place for speech targeting Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s staff, court staff, their family members as well as family members of Bragg and Merchan.
The intermediate state appeals court last month rejected Trump’s argument that the trial’s conclusion warranted terminating the order completely prior to sentencing. “The fair administration of justice necessarily includes sentencing,” the appeals court wroteciting the limited nature of the remaining order and noting that “threats received by District Attorney staff after the jury verdict continued to pose a significant and imminent threat.”
Trump succeeded last week in getting Merchan to postpone the sentencing until after November’s presidential election. When it comes to the remaining gag order, that means it stays in place for that much longer, with Thursday’s rejection potentially being the final word on the matter. It’s unclear if Trump will seek to appeal further to the U.S. Supreme Court, which gave him broad criminal immunity in the July 1 ruling that led to his New York sentencing being postponed.
Merchant”https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/pdfs/PeoplevDJT-Letter-Adjournment-Dec9-6-24.pdf” target=”_blank”> is slated to decide on Nov. 12 whether Trump’s Manhattan verdicts can stand in the face of the immunity decision. If they can, then Merchan said sentencing will proceed Nov. 26, though Trump’s lawyers have signaled that they will seek to immediately appeal any adverse ruling prior to sentencing, so that latest delayed Nov. 26 date could be pushed back further.
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Jordan Rubin is the Deadline: Legal Blog writer. He was a prosecutor for the New York County District Attorney’s Office in Manhattan and is the author of “Bizarro,” a book about the secret war on synthetic drugs. Before he joined BLN, he was a legal reporter for Bloomberg Law.
Virginia’s state Supreme Court will decide whether state Democrats’ gerrymander push can proceed after an appeals court on Wednesday pushed the case to the high court.
The state Circuit Court of Appeals, in a motion, stated that the case is of “such imperative public importance as to justify the deviation from normal appellate practice and to require prompt decision in the Supreme Court.”
The move comes after a court in Tazewell County last week blocked Virginia Democrats from going forward with gerrymandering, ruling that the Democrat-led Legislature had wrongly approved a constitutional amendment that would allow for mid-decade redrawing of congressional districts ahead of the midterms this fall.
The move is a potential bright spot for Democrats, who had been stymied by the lower court ruling blocking the party’s attempt to gain upwards of four seats in the midterms through redistricting. Currently, Democrats hold six seats in the state while Republicans control five.
The Republican-backed group Virginians for Fair Maps, one of the main organizations against redistricting in the state, declined to comment.
Virginians for Fair Elections, the Democrat-affiliated group launched last month to urge voters to approve the measure, declined to comment on the record.
Last October, Democratic lawmakers began the process of redrawing maps in the state, an effort that only gained traction after voters elected Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger in the November election and the GOP lost 13 seats in the House of Delegates.
Virginia Democrats had been so confident prior to the Tazewell County court ruling that party leaders vowed to unveil new maps it wanted Virginia voters to approve by the end of last month, with promises of unveiling a map that goes as far as 10-1 in favor of their party.
Virginia is seen as the top prize in Democrats’ redistricting push, especially if Republican-led Florida redraws its maps under Gov. Ron DeSantis. More GOP-led states could also move to draw more red-leaning states if the Supreme Court rules to strike down portions of the Voting Rights Act.
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