Alan Dershowitz, Harvard law professor emeritus, wrote that a continued gag order on Republican presumptive nominee Donald Trump infringes on voters’ rights to hear his criticisms of his recent felony conviction, which is likely to come up at this week’s presidential debate.
In a guest column for The Wall Street Journal published Friday, Dershowitz reacted to Manhattan prosecutors urging Judge Juan Merchan, who presided over Trump’s business records trial, to keep in place a gag order that prevents the former president from criticizing jurors or members of the prosecution who convicted him.
Dershowitz wrote that in addition to violating Trump’s First Amendment rights, “it violates your First Amendment rights and mine as well.”
“The second, less obvious but equally important, is the right of the public to hear the speaker’s views and evaluate them,” Dershowitz wrote of the First Amendment, case law that “protects the right to receive information and ideas.”
That right will undoubtedly take center stage during Thursday’s debate in Atlanta between Trump and President Joe Biden, Dershowitz wrote.
“It is likely that during the debate President Biden will call Mr. Trump a ‘convicted felon.’ The Democratic Party has spent millions of dollars in campaign ads focusing on the New York criminal convictions. Those who watch the debate and who have seen the Democratic attack ads have a First Amendment right to hear Mr. Trump’s full replies,” Dershowitz wrote.
“We have the right to evaluate his views on the witnesses, jurors and judge’s daughter. Just as no one is above the law, no one is above criticism regarding the legal process."
He added: "Mr. Trump may overstate and even distort his complaints, but in the marketplace of ideas protected by the First Amendment, all of us — not the New York courts — have a right to judge him on what he says.”
Dershowitz’s assertion bolsters the argument made by Trump’s defense team, which argued he should be free to fully address the case now that the trial is over and in light of Democrats’ “convicted felon” campaign.
“The marketplace of ideas shouldn’t allow one candidate to take unfair advantage of a questionable conviction while the other candidate has one hand tied behind his back by a questionable gag order,” Dershowitz wrote.
Dershowitz previously told Newsmax that Trump's case "wasn't a trial" but a "predetermined, orchestrated result."
Sentencing is July 11.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
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