Donald Trump has dubbed journalists as “enemies of the state.” But he’s tired of not being able to talk to them.
For context, Trump was referring to the gag order a judge imposed in the criminal hush-money trial.
The gag order is on “inflammatory” speech on the trial and bars Trump from making public statements of any type about jurors, court staff, lawyers in the case or relatives of prosecutors or of the judge.
Trump is allowed to make critical comments about the judge himself and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of an alleged effort to keep salacious — and, he says, bogus — stories about his sex life from emerging during his 2016 campaign. On Monday, Trump called the case brought by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg a “scam” and “witch hunt.”
The charges center on $130,000 in payments that Trump’s company made to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen. He paid that sum on Trump’s behalf to keep porn actor Stormy Daniels from going public with her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied the sexual encounter ever happened.
Prosecutors say the payments to Cohen were falsely logged as legal fees. Prosecutors have described it as part of a scheme to bury damaging stories Trump feared could help his opponent in the 2016 race, particularly as Trump’s reputation was suffering at the time from comments he had made about women.
Trump has acknowledged reimbursing Cohen for the payment and that it was designed to stop Daniels from going public about the alleged encounter. But Trump has previously said it had nothing to do with the campaign.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Stories by Matt Arco
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Matt Arco may be reached at marco@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MatthewArco.