• The order limiting the former president’s speech came after Justice Juan M. Merchan set an April 15 trial date for the case, which involves a sex scandal cover-up.

The New York judge presiding over one of Donald J. Trump’s criminal trials imposed a gag order on Tuesday that prohibits him from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and jurors, the latest effort to rein in the former president’s wrathful rhetoric about his legal opponents.

The judge, Juan M. Merchan, imposed the order at the request of the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which brought the case against Mr. Trump. The district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, has accused Mr. Trump of covering up a potential sex scandal during and after his 2016 campaign.

The ruling comes on the heels of Justice Merchan’s setting an April 15 trial date, rejecting Mr. Trump’s latest effort to delay the proceeding while he seeks to reclaim the White House. It will mark the first prosecution of a former American president, and it might be the only one of Mr. Trump’s criminal cases to go to trial before voters head to the polls in November.

Under the judge’s order, Mr. Trump cannot make, or direct others to make, statements about witnesses’ roles in the case. Mr. Trump is also barred from commenting on prosecutors, court staff and their relatives if he intends to interfere with their work on the case. Any comments whatsoever about jurors are banned as well, the judge ruled, citing an array of hostile remarks Mr. Trump has made about grand jurors, prosecutors and others.

“His statements were threatening, inflammatory, denigrating,” Justice Merchan wrote in the Tuesday order.

There is one notable exception to the gag order: Mr. Trump is not prohibited from attacking Mr. Bragg, who has received numerous death threats in recent months. Mr. Bragg voluntarily carved himself out of the order; in other Trump cases, prosecutors are also left out of the gag orders.

Source: Ben Protess, nytimes.com/2024/03/26/nyregion/trump-trial-gag-order.html