The New York Supreme Court ruled former President Donald Trump must remain under a gag order until Judge Juan Merchan sees fit to remove it, preventing Trump from speaking about some aspects of his felony conviction for falsifying business records even though there's an election in less than 60 days.
Trump was successful in delaying the sentencing on his 34 felony counts until after the election, but doing so may have prolonged the gag order he is currently under even as he looks to run a vigorous campaign in the runup to Election Day.
He was hoping the court would give him relief, but it did not.
“No substantial constitutional question is directly involved,” the court ruled.
Really? What about free and fair elections? How are elections supposed to be fair if one side is allowed to say whatever they want and the other side isn't?
But no, the big bad Orange Man is too dangerous and must be silenced, this thoroughly partisan court has ruled.
Whatever happens, Democrats feel they must prevent the "Threat to Democracy" (Trump) from getting back in office, even if they have to cheat and lie to do it.
Trump is not allowed to say anything about prosecutors in the case or their families because a tiny number of his supporters are insane and made death threats against them (or Democrats did so that Trump supporters would look bad).
Juan Merchan and DA Alvin Bragg are still fair game.
It seems reasonable, but constraining a major party candidate so close to an election could have very serious impacts on said election--and Democrats like those on the New York Supreme Court seem to be banking on that very eventuality.
The entire case was designed to bring Trump down, and when that didn't work, the gag order was the next step.
Maybe the U.S. Supreme Court can right this egregious wrong before the impact can be felt.
With early voting starting any day, though, it seems more and more unlikely.
Democrats managed to deny Trump a second term in 2020 by using media bias and censorship to his advantage. Will they do any less in 2024?
