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In a court filing earlier this week, defense lawyers Todd
Blanche and Emil Bove noted that Democratic President Joe
Biden's campaign had referred to Trump, the Republican
candidate, as a "convicted felon" in a May 30 statement.
They said the order might limit Trump's ability to respond to
attacks from Biden during their June 27 presidential debate -
though the order only restricts Trump's public statements about
jurors, witnesses and other individuals involved in the court
proceedings, and does not prevent him from criticizing the case
in general.
"President Trump's opponents and adversaries are using the Gag
Order as a political sword to attack President Trump with
reference to this case, on the understanding that his ability to
mount a detailed response is severely restricted," Bove and
Blanche wrote.
A Manhattan jury on May 30 found Trump, 77, guilty on 34 counts
of falsifying business records to cover up his former lawyer
Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels for
her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter
she says they had a decade earlier. It was the first-ever
criminal trial of a U.S. president, past or present.
Trump denies having sex with Daniels and has vowed to appeal the
verdict after his July 11 sentencing.
Before the trial began in April, Justice Juan Merchan issued the
order after prosecutors argued Trump's history of making
threatening statements showed he could derail proceedings.
During the trial, Merchan fined Trump $1,000 for each of 10
violations of the gag order. Those included a social media post
in which he called Cohen a "serial liar" and an interview in
which he said, "that jury was picked so fast - 95% Democrats."
Prosecutors in a one-page letter last week urged the judge to
keep the gag order in place at least through his sentencing,
arguing he was still obligated to "protect the integrity of
these proceedings." They are expected to follow-up with a more
complete filing in the coming weeks.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen in New York; Editing by Alistair Bell)
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