The judge handling the Trump indictment on falsifying business records has issued what amounts to a gag order prohibiting Trump from posting about evidence in the case on social media.

State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan imposed the order after prosecutors requested it, saying Trump has had a history of "targeting" witnesses in cases against him.

According to the order, Trump can view "limited" evidence against him “in the presence of defense counsel, but defendant shall not be permitted to copy, photograph, transcribe or otherwise independently possess the evidence," according to the judge’s order.

Trump also cannot publically discuss witnesses or evidence in the case.

Afraid of Trump?

The same rules also apply to prosecutors in the case, who have already talked about evidence in ways that Trump would not have been allowed to do under the order.

Trump has already used social media to blast the judge and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

The case against Trump is widely acknowledged to be weak, and may even be an attempt to distract from increasing evidence that something very fishy is going on in the Biden family with foreign payouts.

Bragg has been trying to get Trump for the past five years, and seized on a case that several other jurisdictions had passed over.

"Bragg is Trump's campaign manager"

Despite the indictment, Trump remains by far the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP primary race. His poll numbers have seen a significant bump since the indictment, which most Republicans view as politically based and unfair.

If Bragg wanted to weaken Trump ahead of the 2024 election, he has failed spectacularly. Most observers expect that Trump will be the nominee at this point, and

This phenomenon has led another GOP presidential candidate, Asa Hutchinson, to say ironically that Bragg is functioning as Trump's campaign manager.

Trump on the upswing

Of course, this is a joke, but in trying to destroy Trump, Bragg has done what no one surrounding Trump had managed to do--stop his poll slide and reverse the trend of Republican voters favoring Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over him as the next GOP nominee.

A lot of voters were ready to move on from Trump until he got indicted, which makes one wonder whether Bragg and other Democrats thought Trump would be easy for Biden to beat (again) in 2024. This does not look as likely as it did a few months ago; Trump now has a six-to-eight point lead over Biden in the latest polls while Biden's approval ratings have dipped into the mid-thirties.