Andrew McCarthy questions Alvin Bragg’s reasons for wanting to extend Donald Trump’s gag order even after hush money conviction
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: Former Assistant US Attorney Andrew McCarthy shared his take on Alvin Bragg's request for the extension of the gag order on former President Donald Trump, on the Friday, June 21, segment of 'The Story' on Fox News.
According to The Guardian, the Manhattan District Attorney who prosecuted Trump in his NY hush money trial asked Judge Juan Merchan to extend the gag order on the presumptive GOP nominee till the sentencing, after he and other officials involved faced threats and harassment following the conviction of the defendant.
The order was reportedly placed on Trump before the start of the trial, which prevented him from attacking witnesses, court staff, jurors, and relatives of the overseeing judge.
What threats did officials prosecuting Donald Trump face?
Since early April, the New York Police Department has logged 56 “actionable threats” against Bragg, his family, and employees at the DA's office, reported The New York Times.
Evidently made by MAGA supporters, the threats included a post disclosing the home address of one of the employees in the DA's office, and bomb threats made on the first day of the trial targeting two people involved in the case.
Homicidal messages such as, "We will kill you all,” “You are dead” and “Your life is done", were also directed at Bragg and other officials, which allowed prosecutors to argue that the threats “overwhelmingly outweighed” the “expressive interest” of Trump, especially since he is yet to be sentenced for his 34 convictions.
Andrew McCarthy's take on gag order extension request
"The underlying assumptions are very different. A gag order of the kind that the judge imposed, which I thought was constitutionally infirm even under the circumstances of the trial, is imposed in order to administer the trial. Once the trial is over and the jury is dismissed and everyone is dismissed, there is no reason to have a gag order in place," McCarthy told Fox News.
"If Alvin Bragg thinks that Trump is threatening or inciting people, he is perfectly free to indict him for that- if he had the evidence, he would do that," he continued.
"But the other thing that's peculiar here is Trump was convicted on 34 counts because of the way that Bragg parsed one transaction to turn it into 34 felonies. As a result, the judge has somewhere between 20 and 136 or so years of exposure to sentence Trump to, depending on how you read the New York sentencing laws."
"Why does he need a gag order? He has something hanging over Trump like nobody's business. He can impose sentence July 11 and take into account anything, including if he thinks Trump engages in threatening behavior," he added.
