New York judge in Trump arraignment reportedly received dozens of threats | Donald Trump

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The New York judge who presided over the arraignment of Donald Trump and the judge’s family have reportedly received numerous threats following the former president’s historic arrest.

In a Manhattan court on Tuesday, Trump pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts related to his hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

NBC was among the outlets that reported that the judge, Juan Merchan, and his family had received dozens of threats.

Citing two sources familiar with the matter, NBC said the threats, like those recently directed at Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg and other officials, came in the form of calls, emails and letters. .

In addition to increased security around Merchan and the courthouse, the New York police are providing additional security to all affected staff members, NBC said. Biographies of employees in Braggs’ office have been removed from the district attorney’s website.

The New York Daily News also reported threats to Merchan and his family, a source telling the paper that the content of the calls, emails and letters was harassment and defamation, with most of the trolls being calling from out of state.

Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the New York court administration office, told the paper: We are constantly evaluating and reevaluating security concerns and potential threats. We have maintained a heightened security presence in and around courthouses and throughout the judiciary and will adjust protocols as necessary.

Elsewhere, J Michael Luttig, the retired conservative judge and adviser to former vice-president Mike Pence who rose to national prominence by testifying before a House committee on Jan. 6, warned that he was at risk of a gag order on his attacks on Judge Merchan.

No court wants to impose a gag order on a president of the United States, Luttig told Axios. But if the former president insists on the criminal court in Manhattan, the court will have no choice.

Mike Scotto, a former head of the rackets bureau for the Manhattan district attorney, said on the same site: A gag order is used to protect defendants’ rights to a fair trial and also the rights of governments in a fair trial, so that potential jurors do not learn anything about the case that they would not learn in court.

Luttig is an influential voice in conservative circles, widely considered unlucky not to reach the supreme court. He predicted the beginning of the end of Donald Trump.

But the former president enjoys a comfortable lead in the polls regarding the 2024 Republican nomination and senior party figures have rallied behind him in response to his historic accusation.

Ahead of his arraignment in the case in New York, Trump fueled the controversy with inflammatory social media posts about the case and Bragg and calls for protests.

On Tuesday, far-right Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene led a rally for Trump in a park outside the courthouse in Manhattan.

Inside court, Merchan warned Trump to refrain from making statements likely to incite violence and civil unrest. He also told a Trump lawyer: I don’t share your view that some language is justified by frustration.

Trump gave brief, sarcastic remarks after the New York arrest video report

Hours later, in a speech at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida, Trump called Merchan a judge Trump hated; attacked judges’ families (I have a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family whose daughter worked for Kamala Harris); and went after Bragg (a criminal) and other prosecutors overseeing investigations of his behavior in the White House and out of office.

Fani Willis, the district attorney of Fulton county, Georgia, is investigating the Trumps’ election subversion attempts there, with an indictment expected.

Trump called him a local racist Democrat.

At the US justice department, special counsel Jack Smith is overseeing investigations of Trump’s subversion of the election and inciting the attack on the Capitol, and of Trump’s preservation of classified records.

Trump called him a radical-left lunatic known as a bomb-thrower.

The Lincoln Project, a group formed by anti-Trump Republicans, condemned what it called paranoid and delusional rhetoric fueled by fanatical cult members who care nothing for democracy and American values.

Trump got the circus he wanted, the group said. The rest of the GOP fell in line.

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