An American flag is seen upside down at the conservative Heritage Foundation in Washington, on May 31, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

Upside-down American flags emerged outside homes and on social media on May 31 in support of Donald Trump after a New York jury returned a historic guilty verdict against the former Republican president.

Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene and country music singer Jason Aldean were among the prominent Americans to display the inverted flag, a symbol of distress or protest in America for over 200 years.

The symbol, popular among some avid Trump supporters since his 2020 election defeat, exploded across pro-Trump social media accounts after he was convicted on Thursday of falsifying documents to cover up a hush money payment to a porn star to illegally influence the 2016 election.

Minutes after the verdict Greene, a Trump loyalist, posted an inverted U.S. flag on her X account. By Friday afternoon more than 8 million people had viewed it.

Mr. Aldean posted an inverted flag on his Instagram account, saying: “Scary times in our country right now, man.” He added: “If there was ever a time to speak up, ITS NOW! Make no mistake. We are in trouble.”

Don Tapia, a former Trump ambassador to Jamaica and a Republican donor, flew an inverted flag outside his Arizona home. He said he had received phone calls of support and that motorists had honked as they drove by. “Will switch back Sunday to regular flag,” he told Reuters by text message.

Dan Bongino, a conservative radio talk show host who interviewed Trump on his show on Wednesday, posted an inverted U.S. flag on his X account after the verdict. It had received 250,000 views by mid-afternoon on Friday.

A Miami chapter of the Proud Boys, a far-right militant group, posted an inverted flag on the message channel Telegram, as did a similar group called Patriot Voice, with the words: “In dire distress.”

Also read | Biden says questioning Trump’s guilty verdict is ‘dangerous’ and ‘irresponsible’

On pro-Trump corners of the internet, some supporters called for riots, revolution and violent retribution.

The symbolic inverting of the flag drew nationwide attention when the New York Times reported in mid-May that an upside-down Stars and Stripes was flown outside the home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in the weeks after the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters rioting in protest at his 2020 election defeat.

Mr. Alito, a conservative appointed to the court by Republican former President George W. Bush, told the Times he had “no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag.” He said his wife raised the inverted flag over a neighborhood dispute.

Trump, the first former president to be convicted of a crime, said on Friday he will appeal the verdict. He is locked in a tight race with Democratic President Joe Biden ahead of their November. 5 election rematch.

Staring down a bank of cameras inside Manhattan’s Trump Tower, he rattled off a list of adversaries and grievances in rambling remarks while vowing to keep on fighting.

An upside-down U.S. flag was first used by sailors in the 1700s to signal distress, said presidential historian Timothy Naftali. It has since taken on a long history of political symbolism on the American left as well as the right.

It was used in the anti-slavery movement in the mid-1800s and was carried by anti-Vietnam War protesters in the 1960s, said Mr. Naftali, a professor at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

He said it was ironic that when Vietnam War protesters inverted the flag or burned it, Republicans generally decried that.

“We live in an era now where the deepest and most virulent conspiracies about the nature of our Constitution are on the right. Inverting the flag is part of that,” he said.

An inverted U.S. flag was flown by some people protesting the murder of George Floyd, a Black man, by a white Minnesota police officer in 2020.

It was carried by people protesting the U.S. Supreme Court decision in 2022 to end the federal right to an abortion.

Trump and his Republican supporters have in recent years decried Black football players taking a knee during the playing of the U.S. national anthem, known as the Star-Spangled Banner, itself a reference to the flag.

In an unprecedented verdict, a New York jury on May 30 unanimously convicted Donald J. Trump of falsifying records to cover up a sex scandal that threatened to derail his 2016 presidential campaign. The trial, that led to the first-ever criminal conviction of a former U.S. President, could have a significant bearing on Mr. Trump’s voter support barely five months ahead of the U.S Presidential election where he seeks to recapture the White House.

The judge overseeing the case, Juan M. Merchan, set his sentencing for July 11 — just days before the Republican National Convention is set to convene to formally declare Mr. Trump as the presidential nominee. The conviction on 34 Class E felonies carries a potential penalty of four years of imprisonment for each count, although the judge may also consider probation or home confinement as possible alternatives. However, the conviction will not deter him from running for president for another term in the absence of any explicit constitutional bar.

The real estate tycoon faces three other felony indictments, but the Manhatten case — often criticised by legal experts as the weakest of the four prosecutions— is undoubtedly significant since it is the only one to conclude before the November election. The other three cases — two involving accusations in Atlanta and Washington that he conspired to overturn the 2020 election, and a federal indictment in Florida charging him with illegally hoarding top-secret records — are currently mired in delays and appeals.

Also read: Trump hush money trial LIVE updates

Reacting to the verdict, Mr. Trump said that he would be appealing the conviction while downplaying the allegations underlying the case. “It’s not hush money. It’s a nondisclosure agreement, totally legal, totally common,” he said. Addressing reporters at the Trump Tower in New York, the former president further claimed that the trial was “rigged” and a tactic of the Democratic party to derail his electoral bid.

The felony charges

The historic trial involved charges that Mr. Trump falsified business records in an attempt to cover up payments made to Stormy Daniels, a porn actor who claimed that she had a sexual liaison with the married former president in 2006. The $130,000 payment was made by Mr. Trump’s former lawyer and “fixer” Michael Cohen to buy Ms. Daniel’s silence during the final weeks of the 2016 presidential race — an attempt to interfere in the elections according to the prosecution. When Mr. Cohen was reimbursed, the payments were recorded as legal expenses in an “unlawful attempt” to disguise the true purpose of the transactions, the prosecution contended. However, the defense argued that they were legitimate legal retainer fees.

The trial, which featured more than four weeks of riveting testimonies, finally persuaded the 12-member jury that Mr. Trump had hatched a conspiracy with Mr. Cohen and David Pecker, the former publisher of The National Enquirer, to buy and suppress claims that could have jeopardised his candidacy. Jury deliberations are, however, confidential and the reasoning behind the ruling will remain unclear unless any of the jurors decides to speak publicly.

The 34 counts were divided into three categories — 11 related to invoices from Mr. Cohen showing payments made to Ms. Daniels, 11 related to checks signed by Trump or using his funds to reimburse Mr. Cohen and 12 related to accounting entries documenting these reimbursements in Mr. Trump’s financial records.

Editorial | In the dock: On Donald Trump and his legal challenge

From the moment Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg announced charges against the real estate tycoon more than a year ago, legal analysts questioned his unconventional strategy — it is not illegal to pay hush money and the misdemeanour counts were all barred by the statute of limitations. However, Mr. Bragg contended that the case was fundamentally about an attempt to corrupt the 2016 presidential election, not merely about past sexual encounters. He argued that this constituted a crime involving the violation ofSstate election laws aimed “to manipulate and defraud the voters, to pull the wool over their eyes in a coordinated fashion.”

Prosecutors were “successful at reframing this as essentially a disinformation operation on the 2016 election, not just the coverup of an affair,” Asha Rangappa, a lawyer and a former FBI agent told Time Magazine.

The trial

A major challenge for the prosecution was to establish Mr. Cohen’s credibility — the star witness of the trial whose loyalty Mr. Trump had lost. In 2018, he had pleaded guilty to multiple crimes involving the hush-money scheme, including lying to Congress and federal investigators. During the proceedings, the defense lawyer Todd Blanche told the jury about Mr. Cohen’s previous deceitful conduct, including an instance in which he allegedly stole from Mr. Trump’s company. However, prosecutors retorted by saying that Mr. Cohen was hired “because he was willing to lie and cheat on Mr. Trump’s behalf.”

Over the last couple of months, Mr. Trump has repeatedly targeted Mr. Cohen and the jurors in the case, despite a court-issued gag order that prohibits him from making such public statements. This resulted in Judge Juan M. Merchan holding him guilty of contempt of court and even warning that he might place the former president behind bars.

In the courtroom, the jurors were presented with a recording secretly captured by Mr. Cohen in September 2016. In it, Mr. Trump could be heard discussing a hush money payment to Karen McDougal, a Playboy model who claimed to have had a year-long affair with him. The evidence was further bolstered by Mr. Pecker’s testimony that he had agreed to ensure that unflattering stories which could damage the Trump campaign were never made public. This included having his company buy Ms. McDougal’s silence.

Notably, Ms. Daniels herself testified, offering a detailed account of her affair with the former president which began during a celebrity golf tournament on the shores of Lake Tahoe in 2006. In some of his most incriminating testimony, Mr. Cohen said that Mr. Trump and the then Trump Organization Chief Financial Officer Allen Weisselberg had discussed Ms. Daniel’s payment plan in a January 2017 meeting shortly before Mr. Trump’s inauguration as the president. 

“To keep the loyalty and to do the things that he had asked me to do, I violated my moral compass, and I suffered the penalty, as has my family,” Mr. Cohen told the jury in a candid confession.

Although Mr. Trump did not take the stand during the proceedings, his lawyers denied the sexual encounters and argued that his celebrity status, particularly during the 2016 campaign, made him susceptible to extortion attempts. They claimed that the hush money deals were motivated by personal considerations such as the impact on his family and his business, and not political ones.

What happens next?

With Mr. Trump set to appeal his conviction, the American electorate will be left with two distinct choices — a convicted felon or an unpopular incumbent. Although he remains highly competitive in polls, a poll from Bloomberg and Morning Consult earlier this year found that 53% of voters in key swing states would refuse to vote for the Republican if he were convicted. Concurring with this, former prosecutor and government ethics expert Melanie Sloan told Al Jazeera the conviction could “drive a wedge” between Mr. Trump and more moderate constituencies.

The sentencing, set for July 11, will be preceded by the submission of a pre-sentencing report with recommendations based on the defendant’s criminal history. Given that Mr. Trump has no prior convictions, this is likely to work in his favour.

The ruling is also unlikely to dampen his chances of contesting the presidential elections. The U.S. Constitution sets very few eligibility criteria for presidents — they must be at least 35 years old, be a “natural born” citizen and should have lived in the U.S. for at least 14 years. While some States prohibit felons from running for sState and local offices, these laws do not apply to federal offices.

However, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment arguably sets out another criterion — it bars those who have “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” after taking an oath to support the Constitution from holding federal offices. Activists have pointed out that the then-president’s actions in the run-up to the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol constitute participation in an insurrection. However, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year ruled that Congress would have to pass a special law invoking this prohibition before it can bar Mr. Trump from Colorado’s ballot.

As a convicted felon in New York but a resident of Florida, Mr. Trump’s ability to exercise his franchise depends on the sentence that is imposed on him — and when or if he completes it. Under Florida law, a person with a felony conviction from another State is ineligible to vote only “if the conviction would make the person ineligible to vote in the State where the person was convicted.” New York is one of 23 states where people convicted of a felony can vote, even if they are on parole or probation, as long as they are not incarcerated.

“After New York goes through their process, whether President Trump can vote with a felony conviction will depend on what the State of Florida does,” Neil Volz, deputy director of the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition told The Guardian. “Our belief is that no one should be above the law or below the law when it comes to voter eligibility for people with convictions and that everyone should operate under the same set of standards,” he added.

Donald Trump’s lawyers rested their defence on May 21 without the former president taking the witness stand in his New York hush money criminal trial, moving the case closer to the moment when the jury will begin deciding his fate.

“Your honor, the defence rests,” Mr. Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche told the judge. Mr. Trump’s team concluded with testimony from a former federal prosecutor who had been called to attack the credibility of the prosecution’s key witness, one of two people summoned to the stand by the defence. The Manhattan district attorney’s office called 20 witnesses over 15 days of testimony before resting its case Monday.

The jury was sent home for a week, until May 28, when closing arguments are expected, but the attorneys planned to return to the courtroom later Tuesday to discuss how the judge will instruct jurors on deliberations. Trump, the first former American president to be tried criminally, did not stop to speak as he left the courthouse and ignored a question about why he did not testify.

Political twist to the proceedings

Mr. Trump had previously said he wanted to take the witness stand in his own defence, but there was no requirement or even expectation that he do so. Defendants routinely decline to testify. His attorneys, instead of mounting an effort to demonstrate Mr. Trump’s innocence to jurors, focused on attacking the credibility of the prosecution witnesses. That’s a routine defence strategy because the burden of proof in a criminal case lies with the prosecution. The defense doesn’t have to prove a thing.

Yet even as the Mr. Trump denounces the trial as a politically motivated travesty of justice, he has been working to turn the proceedings into an offshoot of his presidential campaign. He’s capitalised on the trial as a fundraising pitch, used his time in front of the cameras to criticise President Joe Biden and showcased a parade of his political supporters.

Prosecutors have accused the presumptive Republican presidential nominee of a scheme to scoop up and bury negative stories in an illegal effort to influence the 2016 presidential election. Mr. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denied any wrongdoing. It’s the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial, and quite possibly the only one before the 2024 presidential election.

“They have no case,” Mr. Trump said May 21 morning before court adjourned. “There’s no crime.”

The prosecution’s case

Jurors have been given a lesson on the underbelly of the tabloid business world, where Trump allies at the National Enquirer launched a plan to keep seamy, sometimes outrageous stories about Mr. Trump out of the public eye by paying tens of thousands of dollars to “catch and kill” them. They watched as a porn actress, Stormy Daniels, recounted in discomfiting detail an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump in a hotel room. He says nothing sexual happened between them.

And they sat intently in the jury box as Trump’s former-lawyer-turned-foe Michel Cohen placed the former president in the middle of the scheme to buy Daniels’ story to keep it from going public as Republicans were wringing their hands in distress over the fallout from the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape.

But the crux of the prosecution’s case centres not on the spectacle, but on business transactions, including internal Trump Organization records in which payments to Cohen were falsely labelled legal expenses.

Prosecutors argued that those payments were really reimbursements to Cohen doled out in chunks, for a $130,000 payment he made on Mr. Trump’s behalf to keep Ms. Daniels quiet. Mr. Trump has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records.

As he left a news conference Tuesday with supporters of the former president outside the courthouse, Mr. Trump’s son Donald Trump Jr. defended his father’s decision not to testify. “There’d be absolutely no reason, no justification to do that whatsoever. Everyone sees it for the sham that it is,” he said.

Rival testimonies

The final witness was Robert Costello, called in to undermine Cohen’s credibility. The two had a professional relationship that splintered in spectacular fashion. During his testimony Monday, he angered the judge by rolling his eyes and talking under his breath. The judge cleared the courtroom and threatened to remove him if he didn’t show more respect for decorum.

Mr. Costello had offered to represent Cohen soon after the lawyer’s hotel room, office and home were raided and as Cohen faced a decision about whether to remain defiant in the face of a criminal investigation or to cooperate with authorities in hopes of securing more lenient treatment.

He has repeatedly maligned Cohen’s credibility and was even a witness before last year’s grand jury that indicted Trump, offering testimony designed to undermine Cohen’s account. In a Fox News Channel interview last week, Mr. Costello accused Cohen of lying to the jury and using the case to “monetise” himself.

He contradicted Cohen’s testimony describing Mr. Trump as intimately involved in all aspects of the hush money scheme. He told jurors on Monday that Cohen told him Mr. Trump “knew nothing” about the hush money payment to Ms. Daniels. “Michael Cohen said numerous times that President Trump knew nothing about those payments, that he did this on his own, and he repeated that numerous times,” he testified.

Cohen, however, testified earlier Monday that he had “no doubt” that Mr. Trump gave him a final sign-off to make the payments to Daniels. In total, he said he spoke with Trump more than 20 times about the matter in October 2016.

Prosecutors have said that they want to show that Costello was part of a pressure campaign to keep Cohen in Trump’s corner once the then-attorney came under federal investigation. On that theme, Hoffinger asked Costello about a 2018 email in which he assured Cohen that he was “loved” by Trump’s camp, “they are in our corner” and “you have friends in high places.”

Asked who those “friends in high places” were, Mr. Costello said he was talking about Mr. Trump, then the president. He bristled as he insisted he did not feel animosity toward Cohen and did not try to intimidate him. “Ridiculous. No,” he said to the latter.

Team Trump’s long-shot request

The judge has yet to rule on a defence request to throw out the charges before jurors even begin deliberating based on the argument that prosecutors have failed to prove their case. The defence has suggested Mr. Trump was trying to protect his family, not his campaign, by squelching what he says were false claims. Such long-shot requests are often made in criminal cases but are rarely granted.

Mr. Blanche argued that there was nothing illegal about soliciting a tabloid’s help to run positive stories about Trump and identify potentially damaging stories before they were published. No one involved “had any criminal intent,” he said. “How is keeping a false story from the voters criminal?” he asked.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo shot back that “the trial evidence overwhelmingly supports each element” of the alleged offenses and said the case should proceed to the jury.

After the defense rested, Judge Merchan dismissed the jurors and looked ahead to closing arguments — the last time the jury will hear from either side. Deliberations could begin as early as next Wednesday. The judge told the jurors that closing arguments would normally come immediately after the defence rested, but he thought they would take at least a day. Given the impending Memorial Day holiday, “there’s no way to do all that’s needed” before then, he said. “I’ll see you in a week,” he told the 12-person panel.

New York:

Stormy Daniels, the porn star at the heart of Donald Trump’s hush money case, testified in a rapt Manhattan courtroom Tuesday about a 2006 sexual encounter that precipitated the criminal trial of the former US president.

Trump, 77, is charged with falsifying business records to reimburse his lawyer, Michael Cohen, for a $130,000 payment made to Daniels to silence her on the eve of his 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, when the lurid story of marital infidelity could have sunk his campaign.

Daniels’ testimony is providing a pivotal moment in the courtroom drama rocking the scandal-plagued Republican’s attempt to recapture the White House in November.

“The people call Stormy Daniels,” prosecutor Susan Hoffinger announced as Trump, dressed in a dark blue suit and gold tie, sat stony-faced at the defense table flanked by his lawyers.

Daniels, 45, wearing a black pantsuit and heavy eyeliner, began by answering questions from Hoffinger, who walked her through her difficult childhood in Louisiana, stint as a stripper and eventually her participation in the adult film industry.

Daniels said she met Trump at a celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe where she was employed as a greeter by the adult film company Wicked Entertainment.

Trump complimented her as the “smart one” because she was not only acting in X-rated movies but also directing them, she said.

Daniels said she was 27 at the time and Trump was “older, probably older than my father.”

She said a member of Trump’s security detail told her the real estate tycoon wanted to have dinner with her.

She said she was initially reluctant but agreed after discussing it with her publicist.

Daniels said when she arrived at the penthouse where Trump was staying he emerged wearing “silk or satin pajamas which I immediately made fun of.”

“I said ‘Does Mr Hefner know you stole his pajamas?'” she said in a reference to the outfit favored by the late Playboy magazine founder Hugh Hefner.

Trump changed into a dress shirt and pants and they began talking about adult movies.

“He was very interested in a lot of the business stuff,” Daniels said.

Trump, who was married at the time to his current wife, Melania, suggested at one point that Daniels should be on his hit reality television show, “The Apprentice,” she said.

“I said there’s no way NBC would let me on television,” she said.

‘Startled me’

Daniels said she went to the bathroom at one point and when she emerged Trump “was on the bed between myself and the door” in boxer shorts and a T-shirt.

“It startled me,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting anyone to be there especially minus a lot of clothing.”

“The intention was pretty clear,” she said, adding that she thought to herself “great, I’ve put myself in this bad situation.”

“I was not threatened verbally or physically,” Daniels said, although there was an “imbalance of power.”

She said they had sex on the bed “in missionary position” and Trump did not wear a condom.

“I felt ashamed I didn’t stop it, didn’t say no,” Daniels said. “I told very few people.”

Trump has denied having sex with Daniels.

Prosecutors say that Trump — desperate to kill Daniels’ story before it could wreck his chances in the narrow 2016 race — illegally reimbursed Cohen, to cover up the hush money payment.

Cohen, who has become a vocal critic of his former boss, is also expected to testify at the trial as a prosecution witness.

Gag order

The courtroom face-off comes exactly six months before election day, when Trump will try to defeat Democratic President Joe Biden for a shock return to power.

Trump will be constrained from attacking Daniels after Merchan on Monday found him in contempt of court for his repeated violations of a partial gag order.

The gag order is meant to prevent Trump from using his huge media presence to attack witnesses, members of the jury and court staff in a bid to influence the trial.

Merchan said that in addition a series of already imposed fines, Trump will face the threat of jail time for future violations.

The trial is the first criminal prosecution in history of a US president and is one of four cases against the real estate tycoon.

In addition to the New York case, Trump has been indicted in Washington and Georgia on charges of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Biden.

He also faces charges of illegally storing top-secret documents taken from the White House at his home in Florida and refusing to return them.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

After Donald Trump lost a last-ditch bid to delay the first-ever criminal trial of a former US president, he lashed out at the New York judge overseeing the case: Justice Juan Merchan.

“Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised,” Trump wrote on March 28 on his Truth Social platform. “If the Biased and Conflicted Judge is allowed to stay on this Sham “Case,” it will be another sad example of our Country becoming a Banana Republic.”

Despite Trump’s vitriol and efforts to get Merchan off the case, the judge has approached the proceedings with both concern for Trump’s rights as a defendant and presidential candidate, and firmness in the face of what he views as troubling behaviour and personal attacks on his family by the former US president.

The veteran judge, who began his career as an assistant district attorney in the same office that is now prosecuting Trump, has already overseen a criminal trial of Trump’s family real estate company and is presiding over onetime Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal case.

At this trial, Trump faces 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to cover up a $130,000 payment his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, made to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump a decade earlier. 

Trump, the Republican candidate for the presidency in the November 5 election, has pleaded not guilty and denies any such encounter. Judge Merchan has emphasized he does not want the trial to get in the way of Trump’s ability to campaign or to publicly criticize the case.

But he has held firm on enforcing rules in his courtroom, such as when he said during jury selection on Tuesday that Trump had been uttering something and gesturing in the direction of a prospective juror while she was being questioned just 12 feet (3.7 meters) away from him. “I won’t tolerate that,” Judge Merchan said after the prospective juror left the room, raising his voice. “I will not have any jurors intimidated in this courtroom. I want to make that crystal clear.” The juror was not chosen.

In late March, Judge Merchan granted a request from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office for a gag order restricting Trump’s public statements about witnesses, court staff and individual prosecutors. The judge said some of Trump’s statements had been threatening or inflammatory.

The judge later expanded the order to cover his relatives and those of Bragg, whose office brought the charges, after Trump disparaged the judge’s daughter online. Trump’s lawyers have argued Judge Merchan should be removed from the case because of his daughter’s work for a political consulting firm with Democratic clients. Judge  Merchan has denied those requests twice. 

From Queens to Courtroom

The hush money case is the first of four criminal indictments Trump faces to reach trial. Trump has pleaded not guilty in the other cases as well, which are tied to efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss and his handling of government documents. 

The history-making trial is a far cry from Judge Merchan’s prior stints on the state’s Court of Claims, which hears cases against the state and its agencies, and family court in the Bronx. 

The judge was born in Colombia and moved to the United States at age 6, growing up in New York City’s borough of Queens – where Trump also spent much of his youth. He graduated from Baruch College in New York City and Hofstra University School of Law on Long Island.  He has been a Manhattan criminal court judge since 2009. Over the last three years, he has overseen several politically charged cases involving Trump and his allies.

Judge Merchan in 2022 presided over a criminal trial of the Trump Organization. The real estate company was convicted by a jury of tax fraud. Judge Merchan later sentenced the company to pay $1.6 million in fines.   He is also overseeing Steve Bannon’s case, which is currently scheduled for trial in May. The former Trump campaign and White House adviser has pleaded not guilty to fraud charges related to a nonprofit that raised funds for building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Trump’s trial was initially slated to start on March 25, but Merchan delayed it by three weeks when defence lawyers raised concerns about the late production of potential evidence. After finding Trump’s arguments meritless, the judge has shown little patience for perceived postponement efforts.

In an April 3 order denying Trump’s bid to exclude some evidence, Judge Merchan wrote, “The fact that the Defendant waited until a mere 17 days prior to the scheduled trial date of March 25, 2024, to file the motion, raises real questions about the sincerity and actual purpose of the motion.”

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Former U.S. President Donald Trump. File
| Photo Credit: AP

The New York judge presiding over Donald Trump’s trial over alleged hush money payments to a porn star slapped a partial gag order on the former president on Tuesday.

Judge Juan Merchan ordered Trump not to publicly attack potential witnesses, prosecutors, court staff, their families or prospective jurors.

The move came just hours after Trump lashed out at the judge and his daughter in a series of posts on Truth Social.

Trump described Merchan as a “true and certified Trump hater who suffers from a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.”

“In other words, he hates me,” Trump said. “Judge Merchan should recuse himself, he cannot give me a fair trial.”

The former Republican president also said Merchan’s daughter is “a senior executive at a Super Liberal Democrat firm.”

Merchan is the third judge overseeing a case against Trump to issue a partial gag order.

Judge Arthur Engoron, who presided over a business fraud case in New York that resulted in a $454 million fine for Trump, also issued a partial gag order.

So did District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington, who is overseeing the federal case against Trump on charges of seeking to overturn the 2020 election results.

‘Threatening, inflammatory’ –

In his order Tuesday, Merchan noted that Trump had a history of making public statements which were “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating.”

“The uncontested record reflecting the defendant’s prior extrajudicial statements establishes a sufficient risk to the administration of justice,” the judge said.

Merchan added that “there exists no less restrictive means to prevent such risk” besides imposing a gag order.

Merchan’s move comes one day after he set April 15 as the date for the start of the first ever criminal trial of a former president.

Trump faces charges of falsifying business records for payments made by his lawyer Michael Cohen on the eve of the 2016 presidential election to porn star Stormy Daniels to make sure she did not publicize a sexual encounter.

The twice-impeached Trump faces dozens of charges linked to his alleged conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election and also his hoarding of top secret documents taken from the White House.