Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), chair of the House Freedom Caucus, said on Friday that he and fellow GOP lawmakers attended former President Donald Trump’s New York trial this week because of a gag order on his party’s presumptive 2024 presidential nominee.
“They’ve got this gag order against him. That’s why we went up there, so that we could say the things that this corrupt judge is not allowing him to say,” Mr. Good told Fox Business on Friday morning. “This is a judge who seems to get all the high-profile conservative trials up there, and his own daughter is making … raising tens of millions of dollars for the Democrat party off this very trial.”
Judge Merchan’s daughter, Loren Merchan, has served as partner and president at Authentic Campaigns, a political consulting firm that has worked with multiple Democrat clients and was part of President Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.
During the interview, Mr. Good echoed remarks that were made to reporters outside the Manhattan courthouse on Thursday by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who said: “We are here because there are things we can say that President Trump is unjustly not allowed to say.”
Mr. Good described the case as a “sham trial” and called the charges “trumped up.” He added that the entire legal saga was designed to “weigh him down” and “keep him off the campaign trail.”
The gag order issued by Judge Juan Merchan prohibits President Trump from commenting on the court staff, the prosecution, jurors, witnesses, or their families or directing surrogates to do so on his behalf.
