Two doxxing incidents targeted officials connected to Donald Trump's New York legal cases. On October 17, 2023, Trump reposted a Laura Loomer Substack piece on Truth Social that included New York Attorney General Letitia James's home address. In April 2024, Trump's social-media posts about Judge Juan Merchan's daughter, Loren Merchan, led Judge Merchan to expand the existing gag order to cover family members.
What happened
On October 17, 2023, Donald Trump reposted a Laura Loomer Substack piece on Truth Social. The repost contained New York Attorney General Letitia James's home address. The civil fraud trial against Trump was already running, and James's office was leading it.
Coverage from HuffPost and Mediaite tracked the repost within hours. Loomer's post had a small audience on its own. The repost put the same address in front of Trump's Truth Social following.
In April 2024, during the separate Manhattan criminal hush-money trial, Trump posted publicly about Judge Juan Merchan's adult daughter, Loren Merchan. He named her and tied her to Democratic political consulting work. Days later, on April 1, 2024, Judge Merchan expanded the existing gag order to cover the judge's and the prosecutors' family members. The Hartford Courant reported the expansion at the time.
How it started
The James incident followed a common amplification pattern. A small-audience writer publishes the address. A high-audience account reposts it. The repost is what carries the address from a fringe publication to a mainstream feed, and it takes one click.
The Merchan incident shows a second pattern. The original posts were about a family member, not the judge. The court extended the gag order to family because the posts pointed a large audience at her. FactCheck.org later documented exaggerated claims that spread about her in the same period.
Why this case matters
This is the officials side of the Manhattan trial doxxing cluster. The companion piece, Manhattan trial jurors and Michael Cohen family doxxing, covers the post-verdict wave against jurors and witnesses.
The James incident shows how far a home address can travel through a single repost. Loomer's post reached a small audience. Inside a Truth Social repost, the same address reached a large one. Someone with no platform can still spread an address by getting a high-reach account to carry it.
The Merchan incident set a recent precedent on family. Judge Merchan's gag-order expansion is one of the clearer examples of a judge's family members being brought inside a speech-restriction order when the original speech points an audience at them.
What this means for you
If you are a prosecutor, an elected official, a sitting judge, or a sworn officer working a high-profile case, a future post can pull your home address from more than one place — property and deed records, court filings, and the people-search sites that copy from them. The repost happens quickly. The address was collected and made available earlier.
A home address does not sit alone. It ties to everyone who lives there. That is why the Merchan posts drew a family member into a court order, and why James's address on a public feed reached her household, not only her.
New York's Address Confidentiality Program, administered by the Department of State, covers a narrow class of victims and does not cover statewide elected officials or sitting judges by default. The federal Lieu Act covers federal judges only. For most officials in this situation, no statute automatically pulls a home address off the people-search sites.
For more on the doxxing chain, see /doxxing. For the jurors and witnesses side of this cluster, see Manhattan trial jurors and Michael Cohen family doxxing.
What reduces this risk
Both incidents ran on a similar chain: a public official, a name in the news, a home address within reach, and a high-reach account that amplified it. James's address was pulled from public property and deed records tied to her 2023 Brooklyn home purchase — government records that broker opt-outs generally do not reach. New York's Address Confidentiality Program, administered by the Department of State, lets a narrow class of victims (domestic violence, stalking, sexual offense, kidnapping, human trafficking, and reproductive health care providers) use a substitute address in public records. It does not cover statewide elected officials or sitting judges by default. The federal [Lieu Act](/laws/lieu-act) lets federal judges demand removal of their personal information, but it does not cover state judges or state attorneys general. Broker and people-search removal does not touch the underlying property records, but it cuts the number of other places a home address sits waiting to be copied into the next post. We file removal requests across those sites and refile when the listings come back.
Public sources
- Trump Shares Letitia James' Home Address On Truth Social — HuffPost, 2023-10-17
- Trump Lashes Out at AG Over Fraud Case and Posts Link to Her Home Address After Gag Order — Mediaite, 2023-10-17
- Judge expands Trump's gag order after ex-president's social media posts about judge's daughter — Hartford Courant, 2024-04-01
- Exaggerated Claims Circulate About Judge Merchan's Family — FactCheck.org, 2024-06-01