'Real threats': Analyst slams Trump lawyers’ 'misleading' argument against gag

During a Sunday morning interview with MSNBC's Katie Phang, University of Michigan law school professor and legal analyst Barbara McQuade called out former President Donald Trump's lawyers over "misleading" the court in the MAGA hopeful's ongoing New York civil fraud trial.

"Let's speak quickly about this appeals court appearance for Donald Trump," Phang said. "He seems to spend a lot of time in trial court. And then now we see, Barb, he's in appellate courts a lot. There was a filing that was done in that New York AG civil fraud case appeal by the state, by New York state. It detailed thousands of horrible, violent, antisemitic messages that were being received by the law clerk as well as Judge Engoron. From an evidentiary perspective, does the appeals court take that into consideration when it's going to hear oral arguments tomorrow?"

McQuade replied, "I think so, Katie. That's because that it shows that it's this is not an imaginary or speculative harm. These are real threats coming in every day and disrupting the business of the court, putting its employees in harm's way. And so I think one of the things that the Trump lawyers have done which is very misleading here is to look at cases outside of the context of court of a pending criminal case. Prior restraints are frowned upon. Of course, anything that limits poor political speech is antithetical to the First Amendment. But that's not the world that we're in. We are in the world of a trial. So, inside a trial, to protect the parties, to protect court staff and to protect the fair administration of justice, those rules are different. And so I hope that the court sees the light and understands the very real threat on the one hand, versus this restriction on the other."

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