Trump’s legal team believes judge will impose GAG order as it gears up for First Amendment

Donald Trump‘s legal team is preparing for a New York judge to slap a gag order on the former president on Monday, DailyMail.com can reveal, a day before he is due to be arrested in Manhattan.

The extraordinary move to potentially silence a candidate for president will likely enflame Trump’s supporters as he prepares to fly out of his Florida home.

‘The Trump legal team now thinks that the Manhattan judge will take the unprecedented step of silencing the presidential frontrunner with an unconstitutional gag order tomorrow,’ said a source.

‘The Trump legal team is considering adding a First Amendment lawyer to the effort to combat this and will fight it all the way.’

Breaking the gag order could trigger a fine of $1000 and a prison sentence of as much as 30 days, under New York law. 

Donald Trump has kept up an appearance of business as usual and is seen here playing golf on Sunday. But on Monday, his legal team are preparing for him to face a gagging order

Manhattan’s Acting Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has been described as a ‘no-nonsense judge’ who wouldn’t hesitate to jail someone for a breach of a gag order

On Sunday morning, Trump’s campaign announced that the former president would make a speech at his Mar-a-Lago home on Tuesday evening after returning from New York. 

That could now be in doubt.

But it did not change his Sunday schedule. He headed to his West Palm Beach golf club where he could be seen playing the course accompanied by one of his lawyers, Lindsey Halligan.

At the same time it emerged that his legal team will lodge a motion to immediately dismiss the case against him.

‘We will take the indictment. We will dissect it,’ Trump’s attorney Joe Tacopina told CNN on Sunday morning.

‘The team will look at every, every potential issue that we will be able to challenge, and we will challenge. 

‘And of course, I very much anticipate a motion to dismiss coming because there’s no law that fits this.’

Taken together they mark the latest twists in a fast running story that exploded into life on Thursday when it emerged that a Manhattan jury voted to indict the former president.

Trump kept to his usual Sunday routine, visiting his West Palm Beach golf course

He was accompanied in his golf cart on Sunday by lawyer Lindsey Halligan

Trump

He has branded it a ‘witch hunt’ by the Democrats but would be unable to post anything similar if the restriction is put in place

Joe Tacopina and Susan Necheles are both veterans of New York’s celebrity trial circuit. But while Tacopina is known as a streetfighter, Necheles brings a more academic approach

The charges remain sealed but are believed to relate to a $130,000 hush money payment made to adult movie actress Stormy Daniels in 2016. 

Trump has repeatedly lashed out at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg for pursuing a case that had been dropped by federal prosecutors. 

And he has also turned his fire on Manhattan’s Acting Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who will hear the case and is believed to be preparing a gag order.

‘The campaign is preparing for this scenario,’ said a Trump campaign source. 

Later a spokesman said: ‘President Trump stands for transparency and our American Constitution, and any attempt to prevent him, the leading candidate for president, from exercising his First Amendment right is a tyrannical, third-world country move which further proves that this is nothing more than a political witch-hunt utilizing a weaponized justice system. 

‘All Americans should be concerned about their rights being violated and any attempt to obstruct President Trump’s right to use his voice in order to speak truth to power should never be tolerated. The whole targeted crusade is a complete political farce by the Manhattan DA meant to manipulate and interfere with an election against President Trump and his supporters.’

It will only add to Trump’s anger at Merchan, who previously presided over last year’s tax fraud case when the Trump Organization was found guilty. 

A grand jury has been hearing evidence about allegations that Donald Trump paid $130,000 to adult movie star Stormy Daniels to buy her silence over their affair

Supporters have been gathering near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home in Palm Beach, Florida, every day since he warned he was facing arrest two weeks ago. A grand jury indicted him Thursday

In a Truth Social post on Friday, Trump said the judge had ‘railroaded’ his former CFO to try to get him to take a plea deal.

‘The judge “assigned’ to my Witch Hunt Case, a “Case” that has NEVER BEEN CHARGED BEFORE, HATES ME,’ he wrote.

Legal experts raised the idea of a gag order at the end of last week. 

Duncan Levin, a former federal prosecutor with the Department of Justice, said it would mean any discussion of the case outside the courtroom would mean punishment for criminal contempt.

Levin told Insider: ‘I think it’s not only a possibility, but it’s extremely likely that there will be a gag order in the case.

‘Gag orders are very common in criminal cases, particularly in cases where there is an enormous amount of pretrial publicity like this one.’

Trump is preparing to fly to New York on Monday aboard his private jet. After arriving at LaGuardia airport he will spend the night at Trump Tower, according to campaign officials.

A poll from the Trump team claims he has 51 percent of the Republican vote, putting him way ahead of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the race for the party presidential nomination 

He will leave his apartment early the next morning to attend the lower Manhattan courthouse, before a hearing later in the day. 

He is expected to plead not guilty and is planning to return to Florida as soon as possible. 

In the meantime the indictment has bolstered his poll numbers and led to a bump in campaign donations. 

A poll by Trump’s campaign team found that 51 percent of Republicans see him as their preferred 2024 candidate — putting him ahead of his biggest threat Florida Governor Ron DeSantis who scored 21 percent. 

Trump’s team also announced on Saturday it had raised more than $4 million — almost entirely in small donations — in the 24 hours after he was indicted.