A New York state appeals court has rejected former US president Donald Trump's challenge to a gag order in his criminal case on charges stemming from hush money paid to an adult film actress.
The decision by the Appellate Division in Manhattan means Mr Trump, the Republican presidential nominee in the 5 November US presidential election, cannot comment publicly about individual prosecutors and others in the case until Justice Juan Merchan sentences him on 18 September.
Mr Trump's lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. They have argued that the gag order violated his constitutional free speech rights under the First Amendment.
Judge Merchan imposed the gag order a few weeks before the trial began on 22 April, saying Mr Trump's history of threatening statements could derail the proceedings.
The order initially prevented Mr Trump from commenting on prosecutors and court staff, witnesses and jurors.
Judge Merchan lifted the restrictions on witnesses and jurors in June, after the trial ended.
The appeals court had upheld Judge Merchan's original gag order in May, citing the need to protect people from "threats, intimidation, harassment, and harm," and rejecting Mr Trump's First Amendment argument.
Jurors on 30 May found the former US president guilty of falsifying business records to cover up former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen's $130,000 (€120,000) payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
The payments were made in exchange for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Mr Trump a decade earlier, which he denied.
Mr Trump defeated Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 to win the presidency.
Last month, Mr Trump's lawyers asked the judge to throw out the conviction, citing the recent Supreme Court ruling that a former US president enjoys broad immunity from prosecution, a ruling on that will be made on 6 September.
Mr Trump, the first former US president convicted of a crime, faces other criminal cases and has been doing everything in his power to delay the trials until after the November election.
The former reality TV star faces charges in Washington and Georgia related to efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election he lost to Democrat Joe Biden.
Mr Trump is also accused in an indictment filed in Florida of endangering national security by holding onto top secret documents after leaving the White House.
