Donald Trump called for the judge overseeing his criminal “hush money” case to “Take off the Gag Order!!!” and said he should be campaigning rather than facing a criminal trial.
The former president blasted Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan as a “Trump Hating Judge” who “won’t let him respond to people that are on TV lying and spewing hate all day long,” in a post on Truth Social roughly an hour before he showed up to court.
Trump, 77, was referring to the fact that Merchan before trial ordered the real estate tycoon to refrain from making statements about witnesses, court staff and the family of Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg – whose office is prosecuting the case.
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee came to court Tuesday for the second day of jury selection in the case accusing him falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment made to ex-porn star Stormy Daniels in the lead up to the 2016 election to keep her quiet about her claims she had an affair with Trump.
Before walking into the courtroom, Trump – wearing a blue suit, blue-and-white striped tie and a light blue shirt – went on a roughly two-minute-long rant to media cameras claiming he should be on the campaign trail instead of in court.
“I should be, right now, in Pennsylvania and Florida,” the former commander-in-chief said. “In many other states, North Carolina, Georgia, campaigning. This is all coming from the Biden White House because the guy can’t put two sentences together.”
“He can campaign,” Trump said of Biden.
Trump also addressed one of the key allegations in the DA’s case that he lied on business records to cover up the payment when he repaid ex-lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen for the payment to Daniels, logging it as a legal expense.
“I was paying a lawyer and marked it down ‘legal expense,’” Trump said. “An accountant I didn’t know marked it down as a legal expense. That’s exactly what it was. And you get indicted over that?”
While Trump called for the gag to be lifted, prosecutors filed papers Tuesday seeking to have Trump held in contempt of court for allegedly violating the order by calling Cohen – slated to be the star witness at trial – a thug in a series of Truth posts.
Merchan said Monday he planned to address arguments over whether Trump violated the gag on Wednesday.
No jurors have been selected yet for the trial – which is expected to last around six weeks – after a full day in court Monday.
