Former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks by phone from the 18th green during the third day of the LIV Golf Invitational-Miami at Trump National Doral Miami on April 7, 2024 in Doral, Florida.
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Donald Trump’s lawyers made a last-ditch effort Monday to change the venue of his upcoming criminal hush-money trial and suspend a gag order that prevents him from talking about potential witnesses or the judge’s family.
Trump’s filing with the New York Court of Appeals comes a week before jury selection begins in the Manhattan Supreme Court trial in which Trump is accused of falsifying business records to hide payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.
A person familiar with the matter told NBC News that the appeal was filed through a legal mechanism that allows individuals to directly challenge the court’s actions. Doing so would allow Trump to challenge the case before the trial begins.
A website for the New York court system showed the appeal was filed on Monday and noted two pending motions to stay and a motion to change venue, although the lawsuit itself was not immediately visible. Sources at NBC confirmed the lawsuit seeks to delay the trial and maintain the gag order.
Trump’s attorney, Todd Branch, did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the appeal. Another Trump attorney, Susan Necheles, declined to comment.
The appeal was first reported shortly after Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg urged presiding Judge Juan Merchan to deny Trump’s recent request to recuse the judge.
Bragg blasted the proposal as a malicious effort to delay the trial and sidestep a gag order that bars Trump from talking about the judge’s daughter.
Bragg wrote in a court filing that Trump’s “reheated” arguments for Merchin’s recusal were nothing new from previous attempts to find a new judge.
Instead, Bragg argued that the current recusal motion is a “last-ditch effort” to delay the trial and appears to be a “clear reverse engineering effort” to defend Trump’s recent series of attacks on Silent’s adult daughter.
Bragg wrote that it was an “attempt to terminate” the gag order and “taint the court” by attacking the judge and his family “as part of a baseless effort to cast doubt on the integrity of these proceedings.”
Trump’s lawyers argued in court documents filed Friday that Authentic Campaigns, a Democratic consulting firm that secretly investigated his daughter’s work, would benefit from the hush-money case and use it to raise money and promote an anti-Trump message.
“Personal political views may not be grounds for recusal,” they wrote. “Profiting from promoting a political agenda hostile to President Trump, including fundraising based on this case, must be grounds for recusal.”
Bragg said in Monday’s filing that it was “pure speculation that the court’s ruling would affect Authentic’s contracts or revenue.” Even if the company raised money after the trial, Bragg added, it would still not be enough to warrant a judge’s recusal.
A few days ago, Merchin expanded a gag order on Republican presidential candidate Trump, prohibiting him from making remarks about the judge’s family members to avoid interfering with the case. The silent review also modified an order banning Trump from talking about Bragg family members.
Trump tightened the gag order after a series of social media posts targeting Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan,’s political work, which he claimed proved the judge was biased.
Trump also accused Loren Merchan of controlling an Account X, which displayed a photo of Trump in a jail cell. New York’s Office of Court Administration denied that the judge’s daughter controlled the account at the time the photo was posted.
Judge Murcha wrote in the order that people watching Trump’s attacks may conclude that their loved ones might be attacked if they were involved in the case. The situation constituted “a direct attack on the rule of law itself,” he wrote.
Last summer, a judge denied Trump’s first recusal request, which also targeted Loren Merchant’s political activities.
Bragg argued on Monday that Trump’s current recusal motion made “the same” arguments, adding that it contained some points that had not been raised before and were “completely without merit.”
The hush money case will be the first of four criminal cases against Trump to go to trial. The former president’s lawyers have repeatedly tried to dismiss or delay all of those cases during his campaign against Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.
—CNBC And manganese contributed to this report.
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