Gagging Trump: Why is he barred from discussing Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels?

GAGGING TRUMP: WHY IS HE BARRED FROM DISCUSSING MICHAEL COHEN AND STORMY DANIELS? Former President Donald Trump starts his trial on Monday forbidden to speak publicly about the witnesses against him in a case some experts have called weak and politically motivated. But the witnesses are not forbidden from speaking about Trump. Indeed, one of the witnesses in the case, former Trump fixer Michael Cohen, is today in the full-time Trump-bashing business and talks about Trump all the time. Cohen does his talking on MSNBC and other media outlets, as well as his own podcast. Cohen’s motive in speaking about Trump is no secret. He titled his book about Trump Revenge, which, no matter what Cohen might say, clearly referred to Cohen’s deep desire for revenge against his former employer.

So Cohen is in the news daily trashing Trump. And yet Trump is forbidden by Judge Juan Merchan’s gag order from saying a word about Cohen. And when Trump did say a word about Cohen, in a post on Truth Social, the former president’s social network, some called for Trump to be jailed. It is a surpassingly weird situation.

Prosecutors working for the elected Democratic district attorney of Manhattan, Alvin Bragg, have alleged that Trump has repeatedly violated the judge’s gag order. Last week, they alleged in court that Trump had committed seven new violations in just the previous few days. According to the New York Times, prosecutor Christopher Conroy “laid out new examples of posts that prosecutors say broke the [gag] order, and risking inspiring violence against or harassment of people involved in the trial and those close to them.”

An example Conroy gave was on Truth Social, in which Trump posted a link to an April 2023 article by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy that appeared in National Review. The headline of the article was “No, Cohen’s Guilty Plea Does Not Prove Trump Committed Campaign-Finance Crimes,” and the subheadline was “Unpacking a weak argument for Alvin Bragg’s weak case against the former president.” The story was legal analysis, pure and simple — persuasive legal analysis, at that — and yet Merchan has forbidden Trump from citing it and has threatened Trump with fines or even jail for pointing it out.

Another example of an alleged Trump gag order violation was his reposting of a New York Post column by George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley. The headline was, “A serial perjurer will try to prove an old misdemeanor against Trump in an embarrassment for the New York legal system.” The “serial perjurer” referred to Cohen — unfortunately for Cohen, that’s an accurate description — and Turley wrote that Bragg’s prosecutors have used Cohen “to convert a dead state misdemeanor into a felony based on an alleged federal election crime that was rejected by the Justice Department,” which is also accurate.

Cohen, who has pleaded guilty to a variety of crimes in the past, denies all this, of course. But the simple fact is Michael Cohen spends each day publicly attacking Donald Trump, and because of his former connection with Trump, he has a media platform to do so. But Trump is forbidden by a judge’s order from attacking Cohen. What sense does that make?

Another witness Trump is forbidden to discuss is Stormy Daniels, the former porn actress with whom Trump allegedly had a sexual encounter and whom Cohen, acting on Trump’s behalf, paid $130,000 in a nondisclosure agreement. (The press love to call it “hush money,” suggesting illegality, but the fact is such agreements are both legal and common.)

Here’s an interesting thing about Daniels: She is currently defying court orders to pay Trump hundreds of thousands of dollars. She has sued Trump. She is currently starring in and promoting a documentary about herself that focuses heavily on her connection, such as it is, to Trump. She is a vocal public figure when it comes to Trump. (Trump’s lawyers say they unsuccessfully tried to serve Daniels a subpoena last month at a gay bar in Brooklyn, where she was promoting the movie.)

As far as the money is concerned, early in Trump’s presidency, Daniels sued Trump for defamation. You might remember this as the time in which CNN gave Daniels’s then-lawyer, Michael Avenatti, unlimited air time to bash Trump and even suggested Avenatti might run for president. (Avenatti is now in prison.) In any event, a judge dismissed Daniels’s lawsuit against Trump and ordered Daniels to pay Trump $293,000 for legal fees. She appealed and was ordered to pay another $245,000. Then, after another appeal, she was ordered to pay Trump an additional $120,000.

Daniels has defied the various court orders. “I will go to jail before I pay a penny,” she said. Now, she is a witness in Bragg’s criminal prosecution of Trump, and she must be protected from any criticism by the former president, even as she continues to defy court orders and travels the country promoting her anti-Trump documentary. What sense does that make?

Even if one thinks a gag order against Trump is appropriate for some witnesses, the fact is the order forbidding criticism of Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels seems deeply unfair and appears to violate, as Trump has argued, the former president’s First Amendment rights.