After Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg urged Judge Juan Merchan to extend the judge’s gag order against criminal defendant Donald Trump to include his daughter, Trump’s lawyers responded with a response where they argue that not only are Bragg and Merchan not covered by the gag order, but Merchan’s daughter is fair game because she’s working against the interests of Donald Trump.
Bragg’s letter to Merchan, sent to the judge Thursday morning, asks Merchan to clarify that the gag order issued earlier this week covers Merchan and Bragg themselves, as well as Merchan’s daughter.
“Contrary to the People’s suggestion, the Court cannot ‘direct’ President Trump to do something that the gag order does not require,” Trump’s lawyers wrote in response. “To ‘clarify or confirm’ the meaning of the gag order in the way the People suggest would be to expand it.” Recent Trump social media posts naming and targeting the judge’s daughter would be outside the scope of the existing order, and besides, they argue, she started it by having political opinions that don’t support Donald Trump wholeheartedly [paraphrase].