Bob Good says Republicans went to Trump trial because of gag order

Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.) said he and fellow Republicans went to former President Trump’s hush money trial in New York City due to a gag order the former president is under. 

“And they’ve got this gag order against him,” Good said on Fox Business’s “Varney & Co.” Friday. “That’s why we went up there, so that we could say the things … this corrupt judge is not allowing him to say.”

Good was part of a large group of Republicans who traveled to Trump’s New York criminal trial Thursday, along with Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Lauren Boebert (Colo.), Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Mike Waltz (Fla.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Andy Ogles (Tenn.), Anna Paulina Luna (Fla.) and Ralph Norman (S.C.).

Trump is currently under a gag order in the hush money trial that restricts him from publicly commenting on witnesses, prosecutors, court staff and Judge Juan Merchan’s family.

“This is a judge who seems to get all the high profile conservative trials up there,” Good continued in the Fox Business interview. “And his own daughter is making — raising … tens of millions of dollars for the Democrat party, off this very trial.”

Merchan’s daughter, Loren, has served as an executive at a progressive political consulting firm that has worked for Democrats including President Biden and Vice President Harris. 

Other Republicans, including Sens. JD Vance (Ohio), Tommy Tuberville (Ala.), House Speaker Mike Johnson (La.), and former GOP presidential primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, have also made their way to Trump’s hush money trial recently.

Johnson pushed back against the hush money trial in remarks outside the Manhattan courthouse Tuesday.

“This is the fifth week that President Trump has been in court for this sham of a trial. They are doing this intentionally to keep him here and keep him off of the campaign trail,” Johnson said. “And I think everybody in the country can see that for what it is.”