Trump lawyers ask hush money trial judge to drop gag order: Live updates

Kenneth Chesebro, James Troupis and Michael Roman have been charged with forgery in Wisconsin over their part in the fake electors plot in the aftermath of Trump’s 2020 presidential election defeat.

Chesebro was one of the former president’s co-defendants in Georgia (he pleaded out), Roman is charged in both the Georgia and Arizona cases and Troupis was one of the primary architects of the fake election scheme in Wisconsin.

Here’s the very latest from Alex Woodward

Watchdog organization Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (Crew) also released a report last month analysing more than 13,000 messages published by Trump on his Truth Social platform and found him vowing revenge, retaliation and retribution against his foes.

50 Cent has hit out at Donald Trump, declaring that the “world is almost over” as Trump received millions from his supporters after being found guilty of 34 felonies.

Trump has reportedly raised $200m since being found guilty last week, according to his son Eric Trump, who told Fox News that the information came from his wife, Lara Trump, the Republican National Committee (RNC) co-chair.

The number is said to be partly made up of $70m in small-donor fundraising.

Since then, 50 Cent has taken to social media to share a screenshot of a news story featuring the headline: “BREAKING: Trump campaign has received over $200 million in total donations since the guilty verdict in New York.”

The rapper, real name Curtis Jackson III, captioned the post: “SMH don’t worry the world’s almost over just enjoy the moment and be happy.”

Leading MAGA figure Steve Bannon has suggested Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who brought the hush money charges against Donald Trump, should be jailed.

“Of course [Bragg] should be — and will be — jailed,” Steve Bannon, one of the top voices of the MAGA movement, told Axios.

Bannon added that Bragg could be targeted using the 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal rights, and the Fourth Amendment, which outlaws unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, “plus scores of other” laws.

He went on to say that he wants “investigations to include [Democrats’] media allies.”

It comes as MAGA allies are pushing Trump to investigate, prosecute — and even try to imprison —those involved in bringing four criminal cases against him.

House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Monday told Fox News that he’s preparing an appropriations package that would “defund the lawfare activities” of state and federal prosecutors leading “politically sensitive investigations,” including Bragg, special counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis. He added that he is going to “look at Special Counsel Jack Smith,” who is prosecuting Trump for his alleged mishandling of classified documents. “We have the funding streams. We have mechanisms to try to get control of that,” he said.

Jordan called last week for Bragg and one of his courtroom prosecutors, Matthew Colangelo, to testify on 13 June before the Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.

Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson said this weekend on Fox News Sunday that the hearing’s purpose “is to investigate what these prosecutors are doing at the state and federal level to use … political retribution in the court system to go after political opponents, federal officials like Donald Trump.”

Vice President Kamala Harris chimed in on Donald Trump’s criminal conviction on Tuesday night, telling Jimmy Kimmel that “cheaters don’t like getting caught and being held accountable.”

“A jury of 12 people, peers, over the course of six weeks, deliberated on the evidence and facts and unanimously determined guilt on 34 felony counts. There was a defense attorney who actively participated in selecting that jury, who actively made decisions about witnesses to call, witnesses to cross examine,” she said in an interview on Jimmy Kimmel Live.

“And the jury made their decision and you know, I think that the reality is, cheaters don’t like getting caught and being held accountable.”

She added: “The reality is, let’s just fast forward again to November. I think the American people want to know that there is a president who is accountable to the people.”

He has not yet been sentenced. A sentencing hearing is tentatively scheduled for July 11.

Donald Trump’s attorneys are asking the judge overseeing his hush money trial to lift the trial’s gag order, “now that the trial has concluded.”

“The concerns articulated by the government and the Court do not justify continued restrictions on the First Amendment rights of President Trump – who remains the leading candidate in the 2024 presidential election – and the American people,” according to Monday’s letter from Trump attorney Todd Blanche to Justice Juan Merchan.

He has not yet been sentenced. A sentencing hearing is tentatively scheduled for July 11.

A gag order prevents Trump from publicly attacking witnesses, jurors, prosecutors and court staff and their families, with the exception of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and the judge himself.

Trump was fined $10,000 for 10 statements directed at witnesses and the jury, and Judge Merchan threatened him with jail if he continued to violate the terms of the gag.

He evaded scrutiny from prosecution in the trial’s final weeks of the trial while a parade of his so-called “surrogates” lashed out at witnesses and the judge’s daughter, and as Trump himself took aim at the prosecution’s star witness Michael Cohen.

Blanche now argues that the basis for the gag order no longer exists, and that recent statements from President Joe Biden, Cohen and Stormy Daniels entitle him to a response. He also argued the gag order should be lifted ahead of a June 27 presidential debate.