Manhattan DA tipped off Trump 'arguably violated' gag order in hush money case — again: legal expert

Donald Trump on Friday “arguably violated” a gag order in his Manhattan hush money case — just one day after the New York Court of Appeals rejected the former president’s request to lift a limited order placed on him by New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin reports.

Appealing to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Rubin described the former president’s comments at a Friday press conference as a “close call and something for the Manhattan DA’s office to think through.”

In a series of tweets Friday, Rubin noted “Trump focused his ire on ‘one person in particular’ who he characterized as having been sent by the White House from [Department of Justice] to New York to get NY Attorney General [Letitia] James’s civil fraud case started, ‘then go to the DA in Manhattan.'"

“There is literally only one person he could have been talking about — but both the timing and context of his returning to New York after a stint at DOJ is not as Trump claims,” Rubin wrote.

The legal expert noted it’s “up to others” to determine if Trump’s press conference claim was “made with the intent to ‘materially interfere’ with that lawyer's work on what remains in the New York criminal case and/or with the knowledge that such interference is likely to occur.”

That, Rubin noted, is “the standard governing the gag order."

“But from where I sit, it's at least a close call and something for the Manhattan DA's office to think through,” she wrote.

Read Rubin’s full thread at X.