CNN fact checker Daniel Dale said Donald Trump ‘conjured out of thin air’ his latest excuse about not being able to testify in his ongoing criminal trial in New York.
Judge Juan Merchan has imposed a gag order in the case but it does not prevent Trump from testifying in his own defense if he wanted to. Trump is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records to pay hush money to adult film star Stormy Daniels during the 2016 presidential election.
The gag order is to prevent Trump from attacking witnesses, court staff, jurors, and members of their families.
But, Trump told reporters on Thursday that he is not “allowed to testify. I’m under gag order I guess, right? I can’t even testify.”
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche nodded in agreement even though the claim is “a lie,” according to Dale.
“He is absolutely permitted to testify in his own defense,” said Dale. “And this false claim, this lie is part of a pattern of former President Trump grossly exaggerating what the gag order actually says. He said at a campaign rally yesterday that because the gag order, he shouldn’t even be talking to you, his audience.”
Dale continued: “The gag order does nothing to prevent him from speaking to political audiences, from delivering social media posts about politics and policy, from speaking to the media. It does not prevent him from attacking the judge, the district attorney prosecuting this case, President Biden, his police opponents. It is narrowly restricted. It is tailored to three specific kinds of speech. He cannot talk about jurors in this case. He cannot talk about a reasonably foreseeable witnesses in this case with the specific intention of interfering with their participation in the case. And he can’t talk about court staff or their families, junior prosecutors, or their families, and so on.”
“So this claim that the gag order means he can’t testify, it’s just conjured out of thin air,” said Dale. “Trump has gone from saying that he will testify, to he maybe will testify, to if it’s necessary, to now, whoa, I can’t testify, it’s out of my hands. But it’s in his hands. He can testify, and he’s just making stuff up.”
