Donald Trump has called politicians making the pilgrimage to support him in the New York court where he is on trial as “surrogates” – as they push the lines of personal attacks he is prohibited from launching due to ‘a gag. order.
The coordination and organization between Trump and these supporters has fueled questions about whether the Republicans’ remarks constitute a violation of Trump’s gag order. But legal experts say it’s difficult for prosecutors to argue that a violation occurred when it’s not Trump speaking and that, even if they were successful, it could trigger a consequence they’re attempting to avoid: sending Trump to prison. .
Trump’s silence order – for which he has already been found guilty of criminal contempt for 10 violations – prohibits him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors, jurors or court staff, as well as the families of these people and the judge presiding over the case. State Judge Juan Merchan, citing Trump for the violations, warned that further missteps could land him in prison, even though prosecutors insisted they were not seeking his incarceration.
Unable to level his preferred lines of attack, Trump attacked the gag order himself and Merchan, as well as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, both of whom remain fair prey for his wrath under the ‘order.
Allies like Vivek Ramaswamy, a businessman who failed to run for the Republican presidential nomination last year, took aim at the prosecution’s star witness, Michael Cohen, when he took the stand last year. last week, accusing him of lying “systematically” and attacking him. Merchan, “whose family members earn millions of dollars as a Democratic operative, including through fundraising using this lawsuit as a basis”, a reference to Merchan’s daughter, who was not initially covered by the order of silence but which was then added.
But Trump’s allies are not bound by that order — only he is, said Ken White, a federal criminal defense attorney in Los Angeles.
“For it to be a violation, he has to order them to do these things,” White said. “Saying ‘I’m doing this because he can’t’ isn’t enough.”
Trump’s campaign insists the efforts are uncoordinated. “All guests are volunteering to come to court in support of their friend, President Trump, and are not invited by the campaign,” a spokesperson said.
Yet even as the statements from Trump surrogates echo many of his past criticisms, prosecutors have largely held their fire. Legal experts warn that prosecutors may suddenly find themselves faced with a situation they have said they want to avoid: seeing Trump imprisoned. On the other hand, they risk falling flat.
White said that even if prosecutors could show that Trump is responsible, such as by somehow proving that he changed his surrogates’ comments before they delivered them, as a journalist said on MSNBC, the result could be doomed.
“The prosecutor and the judge want to get this over with,” White said. “They don’t want a show; they don’t want to face extreme disruption from raising this topic again and perhaps even arresting the former president.
“It would derail the case,” he added.
Robert Hirschhorn, a lawyer and trial consultant, said of the deployment: “Even though Team Trump told them ‘here are the points we want you to make,’ they were smart enough that Trump didn’t Don’t tell them, so they isolated him. I think if the state decided to violate the gag order, they would lose.
“The only option left to the judge is to sanction Trump with some form of incarceration, even if it only lasts an hour or two. And I just don’t think the judge will,” Hirschhorn said.
Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum joined Ramaswamy in going after Merchan’s daughter. When asked, his supporters said they joined Trump in court of their own free will, not at his instructions. But they don’t arrive alone, lining up and entering through the public entrance — several have been seen or recognized traveling with Trump to the courthouse and being part of the security “bubble” that the Secret Service remains around of him.
Another group of allies joined Trump in court Monday. Among them was law professor Alan Dershowitz, who could be heard during a break talking animatedly in the courtroom about the case with his former student and research advisor Norm Eisen, a CNN contributor and legal analyst and Obama’s White House ethics adviser, who was special counsel to the House Judiciary Committee during Trump’s first impeachment. Developer and longtime Trump friend Steve Witkoff, former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and Trump administration official Kash Patel also sat directly behind Trump in court Monday .
Dershowitz said he spotted Eisen in the gallery behind him. “I went up to him and said, ‘Hey, Norm, how are you?’ Let’s talk a little bit and we had a very pleasant conversation,” Dershowitz told NBC News. “I asked him about his family and we talked a little about the case.”
Those who traveled with him or sat in seats also coordinated media remarks outside the courthouse — where they often uttered the words that Trump himself is prohibited from uttering.
Surrogate mothers’ job rotation drew attention in the courtroom.
In a meeting between Merchan and lawyers — known as a sidebar, conducted where the jury cannot hear but transcribed for the record — the prosecution requested that Trump surrogates and their security details not are not allowed to enter or leave the courtroom during the interrogation. Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, said he had no control over them.
“Your Honor, I have less control over what happens to anything or anyone behind me when I pass a witness,” Blanche said. “I have no control over – I mean, these are members of the public.”
“Are you expecting anyone else today?” » asked Merchan.
“Your honor, I have no idea,” Blanche replied. “I’m not waiting for anyone else. But I could be wrong.
“They come from everywhere”
The parade of surrogate mothers took on the appearance of a campaign in other ways. In a new online video advertising Appealing for campaign donations, Ramaswamy appears at the courthouse alongside Reps. Byron Donalds and Cory Mills of Florida and members of Trump’s family, including his son Eric and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee . Trump can be heard in the background speaking to media cameras.
“We’re here in court with President Trump on his side, but we need you to be on his side, too,” Donalds said.
While some Trump allies arrived in his motorcade, others entered with the public and were spotted in the overflow room, such as Jeffery Clark, a former Justice Department official who was indicted alongside Trump in a separate criminal trial in Georgia, where they are charged with crimes related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Trey Gowdy, former federal prosecutor and member of the South Carolina House of Representatives and Trump’s lawyer during his impeachment in 2019, entered the courtroom alongside reporters and members of the public on Monday, in his role as Fox News host.
Outside the courtroom, Trump amplified his allies’ defenses, praising them — and even referencing the efforts of others in Washington.
“I have a lot of surrogates, and they’re very well-spoken,” Trump said, adding that “they come from everywhere.”
“And they think it’s the biggest scam they’ve ever seen,” he said. “They are all armed.”
White said Trump is an unusual litigator because he seems to be almost entirely focused on what’s happening outside the courtroom. In the courtroom, he was seen reading and annotating articles and polls.
“His strategies tend to be about public narrative, policy, fundraising and his base, not what would serve him best in the courtroom and traditional legal strategy,” White said.
A day after House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, requested records from a lead attorney in the case he accused of spending years determined to pursue TrumpTrump raised the allegations himself.
Speaking in the hallway outside Merchan’s courtroom, Trump said: “This is all coming from the White House and the Department of Justice. It’s all them. In fact, a DOJ official is leading the trial.
Trump is virtually daring the prosecution to go after him by having his surrogates skirt the very edge of the gag order using a “workaround” to spread his message while still adhering to the letter of the rule , Hirschhorn said.
“It’s very clear what he’s doing. He’s trying to make this a political trial,” Hirschhorn said of Trump, who is looking for a sympathetic ear, perhaps even inside the room.
“There may be at least one person on that jury who identifies as a Republican, and if that’s the case, it’s a game of entitlement for that juror,” he said.
White said, “You would have to be crazy to upset the judge in your criminal case. Most people wouldn’t do it. But he has always focused on his public image, his ego and political discourse, to the detriment of his judicial strategy.