New York’s highest court rejects Trump’s appeal of gag order in hush money case

NEW YORK — New York’s highest court rejected Donald Trump’s appeal of the gag order in his hush-money case in a terse decision Tuesday.

The Court of Appeals declined to take up the appeal because “no substantial constitutional question [was] directly involved.”

Trump had turned to New York’s top court after the bid was rejected by a mid-level appellate panel in May before a jury found him guilty of falsifying business records to cover up a conspiracy to hide information from voters before the 2016 election. Trump argued the gag order infringed on core political speech “at the height of his Presidential campaign.”

Since his conviction, Trump has separately asked Justice Juan Merchan to lift the order he issued before the trial prohibiting him from publicly commenting on trial participants, including witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, the prosecution team, and court staff on the basis the trial is over.

Merchan, who based his order on Trump’s pattern of attacking those involved in his cases posing a security threat, expanded it to cover the relatives of all involved after Trump boosted conspiracy theories about the jurist’s daughter on his social media site Truth Social. He fined Trump $10,000 for repeated violations and threatened to imprison him for further transgressions.