Alan Dershowitz Invents a Wild New Constitutional Right Just for Trump
One of Donald Trump’s former attorneys advocated for the removal of the court-induced gag order on the GOP presidential nominee in his hush-money trial, arguing that it’s actually completely within Trump’s rights to intimidate witnesses and family members of court staff.
Appearing on Fox News on Tuesday, constitutional attorney Alan Dershowitz claimed that Trump shouldn’t be prevented from lobbing threats and insults at the adult film actress he allegedly paid off ahead of the 2016 election, or presiding Judge Juan Merchan’s daughter, who runs a political campaign firm that has worked with Democrats.
“The gag order is unconstitutional,” Dershowitz said. “You cannot prevent a defendant from attacking the witnesses, from attacking the judge’s daughter if the judge’s daughter could be a basis for disqualification.”
Dershowitz: The gag order is unconstitutional. You cannot prevent a defendant from attacking the witnesses… pic.twitter.com/S3t8AFQlqg
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 17, 2024
Merchan, meanwhile, has already refused to recuse himself, arguing that his daughter’s work holds no bearing on his own—which is exactly what a judicial ethics commission concluded last year.
“There’s no agenda here,” Merchan told the Associated Press in March. “We want to follow the law. We want justice to be done.”
The partial gag order—which Trump and his current staff of lawyers have repeatedly condemned—formally forbids Trump from speaking publicly about courtroom staff, prosecutors, or any of their family members. Comments about jurors are also prohibited, as well as comments about witnesses, but wiggle room still exists within the order that allows Trump to attack Merchan, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, or anybody else, for that matter, including his political rivals.
Still, that hasn’t stopped Trump from violating the order. On Monday, the Manhattan district attorney’s office signaled that it is pursuing action to hold Trump in contempt of court for continuing to make veiled threats against participants in the case on his Truth Social account—including one post that was made after court had already begun for the day. The former president will have to appear for a contempt hearing on April 24 to determine whether his online language violated the order.