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Donald Trump may be legally prevented from publicly speaking about his historic hush money case if a New York judge imposes a gag order on the former president.
Trump is set to become the first United States president in history to be criminally charged when he hands himself in to authorities on Tuesday after getting indicted as part of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's probe into the $130,000 payment to former adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The former president has frequently denied any wrongdoing in connection to the money paid to Daniels to keep an alleged affair the pair had a secret prior to the 2016 election, which prosecutors say amounts to a campaign violation.
Investigators are also looking into whether any records were falsified when Trump's former attorney Michael Cohen was reimbursed for money he paid Daniels on behalf of the former president, which The Trump Organization listed as legal fees.
There is continuing speculation that following his arraignment on Tuesday, Manhattan's Acting Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan will impose a gag order against Trump which will restrict the Republican from discussing the case outside of a courtroom.
If Trump violates the gag order, he could be found in contempt of court, which is punishable under New York state law with a potential 30-day prison sentence and a $1,000 fine.
A spokesperson for the New York Supreme Court told Newsweek that they do not wish to comment "on wild speculation and unsubstantiated claims" about the potential gag order during what remains a pending criminal matter.
Such gag orders aren't uncommon and are frequently imposed by judges handling criminal cases. Gag orders are put in place to ensure that there is a fair trial for the defendants and that pre-trial statements about the case do not influence potential jurors.
Such an order against Trump would mean he can no longer post about the case on Truth Social—like he has been doing several times a day recently—nor during public events such as campaign rallies.
Following his arraignment on Tuesday, Trump has planned to make a speech at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida at 8:15 p.m. ET, with what he is planning on saying potentially hampered by a gag order.
Trump's legal team and supporters of the former president have suggested such an order is "unconstitutional" and would violate Trump's First Amendment rights as he seeks a return to the White House in 2024.
"The Trump legal team is considering adding a First Amendment lawyer to the effort to combat this and will fight it all the way," a source told the Daily Mail.
Duncan Levin, a former senior staffer with the Manhattan District Attorney's Office, believes it is "extremely likely" that there will be a gag order imposed on Trump in the hush money case.
"Gag orders are very common in criminal cases, particularly in cases where there is an enormous amount of pretrial publicity like this one," Levin told Insider.
"This is a criminal case now, so the rules have changed, and the rules are no longer in [Trump's] purview to make," Levin said. "He is a criminal defendant and we see hundreds of thousands of criminal defendants across the country every day who have a lot of rights stripped away from them and he is now one of them. These proceedings are going to change his life."
Former Manhattan prosecutor Michael Bachner told the New York Post it is "feasible" that the court will impose a gag order on Trump if the court feels that the former president "is either acting to instigate disorder or chaos or acts of violence or he's acting to try to affect a potential jury pool or to say things to deprive the government" of a fair trial
Bachner said that Trump, who has accused Bragg's and other criminal investigations into him as being politically motivated, could argue that the 2024 candidate's current legal proceedings are "part of the election process and therefore your gag order is interfering with my right to inform the voters of my position on certain things.
"It's going to be a very interesting First Amendment issue," Bachner added.
MSNBC legal analyst Danny Cevallos suggested it "doesn't seem likely" the New York judge will impose a gag order on Trump.
[3] But also, why would either side want a gag order? Trump obviously wants to talk about the case, and the DA's Office would love for him to say dumb things that constitute admissions or evidence against him.
— Danny Cevallos (@CevallosLaw) April 1, 2023
"Courts will only issue gag orders in NY if there is a reasonable likelihood of a serious threat to movant's right to a fair trial and that less restrictive alternatives would not be as effective in assuring a fair trial," Cevallos tweeted.
"But also, why would either side want a gag order? Trump obviously wants to talk about the case, and the DA's Office would love for him to say dumb things that constitute admissions or evidence against him."
Cevallos added that if Trump is accused of threatening the court or prosecutors with his words, then he could be charged separately over those allegations.
"Also, it's not like any of this evidence is sensitive. We know all of it already. We've had the documents since 2018. We've had Cohen's testimony, books, podcasts. Stormy Daniels has spoken," Cevallos said. "Grand juries may be secret, but nothing else about this case is."
Newsweek reached out to Trump's legal team via email for comment.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more