CNN's Alyana Treene on Friday quickly slapped down a false claim by former President Donald Trump about the gag order in his hush-money trial.
Shortly after Trump entered court on Friday, Treene was asked to comment about Trump's claims earlier this week that Judge Juan Merchan's gag order prevents him from testifying in his own trial.
"Yeah, that's just not accurate," she replied. "The gag order does not say he cannot testify at all. Also, remember, Donald Trump just last week was saying, 'I want to testify' and he knew he had a gag order then."
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Treene went on to speculate that the false gag order claim was a good "messaging tactic" for Trump.
"We've clearly seen him use the gag order to energize his supporters, rally his base, and attack the judge in his case overall for what he says is a violation of his First Amendment rights," she said.
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However, Treene argued that the gag order against Trump is far from unprecedented and overly restrictive.
"The gag order is actually pretty limited when you talk to legal experts," she said. "When I've spoken with lawyers, they say, look, he's actually allowed to talk about a lot. He can go after the judge, which he's been doing. He did that on Wednesday when he was traveling to Michigan and Wisconsin. He can go after D.A. Alvin Bragg. He can talk about the case more generally. He just cannot talk about witnesses and jurors, and I'm told... from Donald Trump's point of view, the thing that's really upsetting him about the gag order is that he can't attack people like Michael Cohen."
Trump has been railing against the gag order for weeks and earlier this week he was fined $9,000 for nine separate violations of the order.
Watch the video below or at this link.
'Just not accurate': Trump's latest falsehood about gag order shut down by reporter www.youtube.com
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