Donald Trump’s gag order remains in effect after hush money conviction, New York appeals court rules

NEW YORK (AP) — Two months after his felony conviction, Donald Trump still isn’t allowed to say everything he wants about his historic hush money criminal case. After a New York appeals court upheld his gag order on Thursday, he won’t be for a while.

The state’s mid-level appellate court denied the Republican former president and current nominee’s latest bid to lift the restrictions, swatting away a last-minute argument that he’s being unfairly muzzled while Vice President Kamala Harris, his likely Democratic opponent, pits herself as an ex-prosecutor taking on a “convicted felon.”

A five-judge panel ruled that trial Judge Juan M. Merchan was correct in keeping parts of the gag order until Trump is sentenced because the case is still pending and his conviction doesn’t constitute a change in circumstances that would warrant lifting it.

“The fair administration of justice necessarily includes sentencing,” the judges wrote.

The gag order bars Trump from speaking out about members of the prosecution team, court staffers or their families, including Merchan’s daughter, a Democratic political consultant who has been the target of Trump’s wrath in the past.

In June, Merchan lifted a ban on Trump publicly commenting about witnesses and jurors in the case, and he has always been free to speak directly about the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, an elected Democrat whose office prosecuted the case.

Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 18, but the case and the gag order could be terminated before that if Merchan grants a defense request to throw out his conviction in light of the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity ruling. He said he plans to rule on Sept. 6.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche and a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office declined to comment on Thursday’s ruling.

The ruling came a day after Blanche tried to file papers asking the appeals court to immediately lift the gag order. With its decision imminent, the court rejected the filing, which had called the restrictions an “unconstitutional, election-interfering” muzzle on Trump’s free speech while he seeks to return to the White House.