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The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s “hush money” trial in Manhattan slapped a gag order on the 45th President Tuesday afternoon. The gag order forbids Trump from making any statements against plaintiff Stormy Daniels, or against witnesses or prosecutors in the case. ABC News contributor Sarah Isgur calls the gag order an unusual step in the trial, but, as she described Trump’s legal woes for 710 WOR’s Len Berman and Michael Riedel in the Morning program, “unusual” is an understatement for a court case involving Trump.
“They are going to put this gag order on, and it says that Donald Trump can’t talk about any witnesses, staff, anyone involved in this trial, except for the prosecutor,” Isgur explained to Berman and Riedel. “Now you’re basically saying, okay if he violates this gag order, what are you going to do? Gag orders in general are highly disfavored by courts because, obviously, criminal defendants have a right to speak. It’s why most gag orders actually aren’t against the defendants, they’re against the prosecution. Of course, [there are] lots of unusual things for Trump to complain about.”
Isgur says she uses an analogy comparing Trump to Paul Scofield to describe the gag order: “This is ‘A Man for All Seasons,’ this is Thomas More back in the Tudor era, saying, ‘Would you cut down all the trees to get to the Devil?’ and [Roper] is like, yeah for sure, it’s the Devil… ‘And then, when the Devil turns around, where will you hide, all the trees and all the laws of England being laid flat?’ The law is there to protect all of us, and if you’re willing to get around it to get Donald Trump, none of us are then protected by it.”
Isgur also gave a synopsis on Trump’s other legal travails, including the Georgia election fraud case: “That’s the one with Fani Willis that at this point has been, I think unfortunately, so discredited because of her actions. We’re still looking at delays in that trial. Donald Trump is now able to appeal the decision by that judge to not remove Fani Willis, so that whole swirl around her “terrible choices”, as the judge referred to them, ‘tremendous bad judgement’ and the ‘odor of mendacity,’ that’s going to continue in Georgia.”
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