Trump Legal Team to Appeal NY Trial Gag Order As Unconstitutional

On Thursday morning, in New York, former President Donald Trump announced that his legal team will be filing a motion to appeal the gag order currently placed on Trump by Judge Juan Merchan. The Trump team is claiming the gag order violates the former president's constitutional rights.

"I just want to let you know that we've just filed a major motion in the appellate division concerning the absolutely unconstitutional gag order, where I'm essentially not allowed to talk to you about anything meaningful that's going on in the case. And many good things are going on with the case. It shouldn't have been filed," he (Trump) said.
Trump is under a gag order that prevents him from making or directing others to make public statements about witnesses and their potential participation or remarks about court staff, DA staff or family members of staff. The judge in the case has ruled Trump has violated the order 10 times, resulting in a total of $10,000 in fines, and threatened jail time if Trump continues to violate the order.

Describing the appeal, the former President cited legal scholars and commentators Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley.

Trump also read legal experts' commentary on the case to members of the media on Thursday, when legal scholars such as Alan Dershowitz and Jonathan Turley slammed the trial.
"'This is a Frankenstein case. They took a dead misdemeanor, they attached it to a dead, alleged federal felony and zapped it back into life. So many of us are just amazed to watch this actually walk into court because it's not a recognizable crime that any of us have seen," Trump said, quoting Fox News contributor Turley.
"'I've been doing this for 60 years, and I don't understand what crime he's been charged with. Nobody understands this. I just don't get the crime. There's no evidence of any crime whatsoever. This is a sham,'" Trump continued, quoting Dershowitz.

Trump has claimed from the beginning that the trial was politically motivated.

Antonio Brown Explains Why He Prefers Trump Over Biden in Wild Interview That Brings Down the House

The appeal comes on the heels of testimony from former porn star Stormy Daniels, which has been described as irrelevant and prejudicial, yet Judge Merchan has allowed the testimony.

On Wednesday, in an article for the Tampa Free Press, Alan Dershowitz, generally regarded as one of the country's greatest legal minds, wrote:

The underlying crime is seemingly a minor misdemeanor – falsifying business records – which long ago expired under the statute of limitations. In order to turn it into a felony within the statute of limitations, prosecutors will have to show that Trump falsified the records in order to impact his election, thus constituting a federal election felony.
The problem is, however, that federal authorities have not prosecuted Trump for this federal election crime. Moreover, state prosecutors have no jurisdiction over federal election law. Finally, we were not even clear, when the trial began, as to precisely which federal election laws the District Attorney was relying on.

Mr. Dershowitz's criticism of this trial is especially interesting, as Dershowitz is a liberal Democrat who has voted for Democrats in every recent election and spoke against Trump in both of his presidential campaigns. In 2018, Dershowitz, in a column for The Hill, set forth his stand for any political figure's civil rights, regardless of party affiliation; presumably, that includes free speech rights.

This trial has greater implications than just the supposed business records that are claimed to be at the heart of the case. Former President Trump has repeatedly denounced the charges and the resulting trial, as well as other legal actions against him, as a political witch hunt and prominent political figures and commentators have stated the same.

As of this writing, former President Trump is leading President Biden by 1.2 percent in the RealClearPolitics national polling average.