Manhattan prosecutors on Monday requested the decide overseeing their felony case in opposition to Donald J. Trump to ban the previous president from attacking witnesses or exposing jurors’ identities.
The requests, made in filings by the Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace, famous Mr. Trump’s “longstanding historical past of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges, and others concerned in authorized proceedings in opposition to him.”
In outlining a narrowly crafted gag order, the workplace hewed carefully to the phrases of an analogous order upheld by a federal appeals court docket in Washington in one other of Mr. Trump’s felony instances.
The gag order within the Manhattan case, if the decide approves it, would bar Mr. Trump from “making or directing others to make” statements about witnesses regarding their function within the case. The district lawyer, Alvin L. Bragg, additionally requested that Mr. Trump be barred from commenting on prosecutors on the case — aside from Mr. Bragg himself — in addition to court docket employees members.
Though Mr. Bragg carved himself out of the gag order request, the district lawyer has acquired the brunt of the assaults from Mr. Trump and his supporters. In an affidavit launched Monday, the top of his safety element listed a few of the worst of the handfuls of assaults directed at Mr. Bragg final yr, together with racial slurs and demise threats.
In a separate submitting, Mr. Bragg positioned a particular emphasis on the safety of jurors. His prosecutors requested that Mr. Trump be barred from publicly revealing their identities. And though Mr. Trump and his authorized staff are allowed to know the jurors’ names, Mr. Bragg requested that their addresses be saved secret from the previous president.
If the decide, Juan M. Merchan, accepts the restrictions, he could be simply the most recent decide to impose a gag order on the previous president. There was an order within the Washington case, a federal case that entails accusations that Mr. Trump plotted to overturn the 2020 election. And the decide in Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial that just lately concluded ordered Mr. Trump to not touch upon court docket employees members.
In a federal trial in Florida through which Mr. Trump is accused of mishandling categorised paperwork, the particular counsel, Jack Smith, can also be looking for to guard witnesses. The prosecutors have vehemently opposed an try by Mr. Trump’s legal professionals to incorporate the names of about 24 potential witnesses in a public submitting, claiming that the witnesses might face harassment or intimidation. The prosecutors have even opened a separate felony investigation of threats made on social media in opposition to one of many witnesses.
The Manhattan felony case was the primary of Mr. Trump’s 4 indictments to be filed and is scheduled to go to trial on March 25. Final yr, the district lawyer’s workplace accused Mr. Trump of 34 felonies, saying he had orchestrated a cover-up of a possible intercourse scandal with a porn star that might have hindered his 2016 presidential marketing campaign.
Mr. Trump’s legal professionals can be prone to oppose the gag order and will enchantment it if Justice Merchan adopts it. A lawyer for Mr. Trump, Todd Blanche, declined to touch upon the prosecutors’ proposal, saying that the protection’s court docket papers spoke for themselves.
Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump’s marketing campaign, slammed Mr. Bragg’s request for a “restrictive gag order, which if granted, would impose an unconstitutional infringement on President Trump’s First Modification rights, together with his capacity to defend himself, and the rights of all People to listen to from President Trump.”
The previous president has reveled in public assaults on his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who’s now certainly one of Mr. Bragg’s key witnesses. Mr. Cohen paid $130,000 in hush cash to the porn star to silence her story of an affair with Mr. Trump and was later reimbursed by Mr. Trump.
The case hinges on the reimbursement to Mr. Cohen. Mr. Trump, prosecutors say, knew that his firm had falsified inner information, referring to the reimbursement as “authorized bills” that have been a part of a “retainer settlement.”
Mr. Bragg has forged Mr. Trump’s actions as election interference, arguing that the cover-up led to the withholding of essential info from voters shortly earlier than they headed to the polls.
However in their very own submitting Monday, Mr. Trump’s legal professionals requested that the prosecutors be barred from asserting that their consumer had sought to affect the election, saying the argument was irrelevant.
Mr. Bragg, the protection wrote, was saying that “efforts by a candidate to forestall adversarial publicity about himself throughout a marketing campaign equals an try and defraud.” They mentioned the argument was not primarily based on the legislation and “is a unprecedented perversion of our election system and the First Modification.”
Mr. Trump’s protection staff additionally requested that the decide stop Mr. Cohen from testifying.
“Michael Cohen is a liar,” the previous president’s legal professionals wrote, accusing Mr. Cohen of perjury in Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial and saying that his public statements indicated that he deliberate to lie once more. (The decide within the civil fraud case concluded that Mr. Cohen had “instructed the reality.”)
Mr. Cohen himself fired again on Monday, saying in a textual content message, “Because the March twenty fifth date attracts nearer and nearer, Donald and his authorized staff of misfits will try and concoct new methods to delay this case.”
In a separate movement filed on Monday, prosecutors offered one thing of a information to their case, signaling that they hope to incorporate different hush-money payoffs they are saying Mr. Trump orchestrated: one with a former Playboy mannequin, and one other involving a doorman who sought to promote an embarrassing story about Mr. Trump in 2015.
As they laid the groundwork to inform that expansive story, they requested Justice Merchan to permit them to introduce proof from the 2016 presidential marketing campaign, together with the notorious “Entry Hollywood” recording through which Mr. Trump boasts about groping girls, in addition to three public allegations of sexual assault made in opposition to him after the recording was launched.
It’s removed from clear that Justice Merchan will grant these requests. Persuading him that allegations of sexual assault must be allowed could possibly be significantly tough, provided that judges are speculated to fastidiously consider proof that might unfairly hurt a defendant within the eyes of the jury.
Prosecutors on Monday have been extra nervous concerning the defendant harming jurors. In looking for to restrict Mr. Trump from disclosing their names, the district lawyer’s workplace cited current situations of his attacking jury members, together with within the 2020 trial of his affiliate Roger Stone. Whereas nonetheless president, prosecutors famous, Mr. Trump had referred to as the top of that jury “completely biased,” “tainted” and “DISGRACEFUL!”
Alan Feuer contributed reporting.
