Democrats gag Trump

OPINION:

A Manhattan court on Monday placed strict limits on what a leading candidate for president is allowed to say in public.

Such a move would be unthinkable in times past, but not for Juan Merchan, a donor to President Biden’s campaign and a judge in the New York Supreme Court.

Presiding over the tawdry hush-money case against Donald Trump, his honor prohibited the former president from discussing either the district attorney’s staff or the court’s family members. Judge Merchan asserted that “this pattern of attacking family members of presiding jurists and attorneys assigned to his cases serves no legitimate purpose.”

At first glance, this appears to be a perfectly reasonable concern. Many staff members are public servants doing their jobs, and their families generally don’t sign up to be caught in the media spotlight. But that’s not what’s happening here.

Loren Merchan, the judge’s daughter, appears to be raising millions from people eager to have her father send Mr. Trump to jail. As recounted in the New York Post, the 34-year-old runs Authentic Campaigns, whose clients are citing Mr. Trump’s courtroom travails in fundraising emails.

Judge Merchan disingenuously suggests that Mr. Trump is inserting Ms. Merchan into the public melee as if she were an innocent bystander. The judge’s daughter is a professional political operative and successful participant in the political arena.

Thus far in the election cycle, Ms. Merchan’s firm has been paid $14 million, according to Open Secrets. This tidy sum provides at least the appearance of a close relative of the judge having a direct financial interest in rushing the case to trial during the election campaign. Whether that is grounds for recusal is beside the point. It’s certainly fair game for public discussion by anyone.

The other aspect of Monday’s order is meant to head off speculation about the role of District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s senior counsel. Matthew Colangelo is not some lowly legal assistant who never sought the public spotlight. Rather, he was the Biden administration’s acting associate attorney general.

It’s hardly plausible that a talented lawyer would demote himself from the third-highest position at the Department of Justice to serve as a bit player in a district attorney’s office. It is far more likely that the administration dispatched Mr. Colangelo as an experienced hand to shore up the often-bumbling local prosecutions of Mr. Biden’s chief rival.

It is entirely appropriate for Mr. Trump to bring attention to the coordinated effort to tilt the November election in the current president’s favor through the judicial branch. “This is a Biden trial,” the former president said. “These are all Biden trials because Colangelo works for Biden. … It’s a very dangerous thing for the country.”

It is hard to imagine a more perfect example of election interference than a lowly county judge threatening to sanction a presidential candidate for exercising his First Amendment right to speak out against an abuse of government power during a campaign.

Judge Merchan is sticking to his assigned role and is unlikely to back off. That’s why the ability to speak out about what is happening in his courtroom is so important.