NY AG filing attributes 'decrease in the number of threatening messages' to Trump gag order

11 December 2023

Former President Donald Trump has been facing two separate gag orders — one in New York Attorney General Letitia James' civil fraud case, the other in special counsel Jack Smith's election interference prosecution.

Trump attorney Alina Habba has been angrily railing against the gag order in James' case, insisting that Trump's First Amendment rights are being violated. But James' office, according to Newsweek, has defended the gag order in a court filing, citing threats against Justice Arthur Engoron's (the judge in that case) staff as an important reason for it.

In the filing, Cleland B. Welton Jr. — a James assistant — stressed that Trump's "asserted free-speech injuries are insubstantial in light of the narrow scope of the challenged orders."

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"Those orders do not prevent petitioners or their counsel from criticizing the (New York State) Supreme Court, the presiding justice, the plaintiff, the witnesses, or the substance of the proceedings," Welton wrote.

According to Welton, Engoron's gag order "placed exceedingly narrow restrictions on the speech of the parties and their counsel, respectively, in response to extraordinary and dangerous personal attacks that petitioner Donald J. Trump and petitioners' counsel made against the court's staff during trial."

Threats against members of Engoron's staff, according to Welton, came after "personal attacks" by Trump. A gag order, Welton said, "led to a decrease in the number of threatening messages that the court and its staff received."

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