Trump loses appeal of gag order in hush money criminal case

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York state appeals court on Thursday rejected Donald Trump’s challenge to a gag order in his hush money criminal case, where the former U.S. president was convicted in May on charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star.

The decision by the Appellate Division in Manhattan means Trump, the Republican presidential nominee in the Nov. 5 election, cannot comment publicly about individual prosecutors and others in the case until Justice Juan Merchan sentences him on Sept. 18.

Trump’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They have argued that the gag order violated his constitutional free speech rights under the First Amendment.

Merchan imposed the gag order a few weeks before the trial began on April 22, saying Trump’s history of threatening statements could derail the proceedings.

The order initially prevented Trump from commenting on prosecutors and court staff, witnesses and jurors.

Merchan lifted the restrictions on witnesses and jurors in June, after the trial ended.

The appeals court had upheld Merchan’s original gag order in May, citing the need to protect people from “threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm,” and rejecting Trump’s First Amendment argument.

Jurors on May 30 found Trump guilty of falsifying business records to cover up former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.

The payments were made in exchange for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump a decade earlier, which Trump denied.

Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 to win the presidency. He has vowed to appeal his conviction after he is sentenced.

(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jonathan Stempel in New York, editing by Deepa Babington)