Trump gag order is assault on people's right to know what he is saying

 Alan Dershowitz:

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on Friday asked Judge Juan Merchan to keep his gag order against former President Donald Trump in place even though his trial has concluded. If the judge does so, Trump’s lawyers will almost certainly appeal the decision. But Trump isn’t the only victim of this ill-advised gag order. It violates your First Amendment rights and mine as well.

The First Amendment, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, provides that no government agency can abridge the freedom of speech. This important freedom has two parts. The first is the right of the speaker to express his views. The second, less obvious but equally important, is the right of the public to hear the speaker’s views and evaluate them. Justice Thurgood Marshall summarized Supreme Court case law on this subject in Stanley v. Georgia (1969): “It is now well established that the Constitution protects the right to receive information and ideas.”

Although the high court has been definitive about the right of the listener to receive the speaker’s information, it has been less clear about appropriate remedies for violations of this right. Do undecided voters have standing to sue the New York courts for maintaining the gag order and denying them the right to hear the Republican candidate’s views on the honesty of the witnesses against him, the fairness of the jurors and the appropriateness of Judge Merchan’s presiding over a trial while his daughter is raising money for Democratic candidates? Under the current gag order, Trump is prohibited from discussing these issues, even during next week’s debate.

It is likely that during the debate President Biden will call 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 Trump’s full replies. 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. 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.
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I have thought from the beginning that Bragg's case was a flagrant abuse of power by a prosecutor.  It is a case that never should have been brought.  The Supreme Court should overturn this attempt to muzzle political speech.