-
Prosecutors have urged Donald Trump’s hush-money judge to enforce most of his gag order.
-
But they agreed that Trump now has witnesses like Michael Cohen and… Stormy Daniels.
-
They warned that Trump could still be held liable for defamation, citing the two E. Jean Carroll judgments against him.
Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s criminal hush-money case say they’re okay with the former president resuming his attacks on Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels and other witnesses in the case — but they want the judge to enforce other parts of his gag order.
In a lawsuit filed Friday morning, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office urged the judge overseeing the case not to end the gag order before Trump’s July 11 hearing.
Trump should not be able to freely attack jurors, court staff, prosecutors and their families — all of whom have been the subject of numerous violent threats, they wrote.
But they agreed with Trump’s lawyers that he should no longer be banned from talking about trial witnesses, including foes like Cohen and Daniels, now that the trial is over.
“Now that the jury has returned a verdict, the compelling interest in protecting the witnesses’ ability to testify without interference no longer exists,” prosecutors wrote.
A jury in May found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying company records, finding that he illegally disguised hush money payments to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who says she had an affair with him ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Before the trial, New York Supreme Court Chairman Juan Merchan issued a silence order that limited the way Trump could talk publicly about the case. They banned Trump from talking about court personnel, prosecutions, staff, their families, jurors, witnesses and people likely to be called to the witness stand.
Merchan found that Trump had violated the orders 10 times during the trial and threatened him with jail time if he did it again.
“You are the former president of the United States and possibly the next president,” Merchan told Trump during a hearing. “There are many reasons why incarceration is really a last resort for me. Taking this step would disrupt the proceedings, and I imagine you would want to end them as quickly as possible.”
After the jury’s verdict, Trump’s lead attorney, Todd Blanche, asked for the silence order to be lifted, saying First Amendment protections should take precedence.
Blanche claimed the order prevented Trump from responding to social media criticism from Daniels and Cohen — Trump’s former personal attorney who was the key witness in the trial — as well as President Joe Biden as the June 27 presidential debate looms.
“Predictably, Cohen and Daniels have continued to attack President Trump and his qualifications for office in the election he is winning, based on their deeply biased views of the evidence and to make even more money for themselves,” wrote Blanche. “Even more troubling, President Biden, his campaign staff and his surrogates have gleefully entered the fray by commenting on this case and the jury’s verdict in a course of action initiated by Biden outside the courthouse during defense calls.”
In Friday’s filing, prosecutors from the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said Blanche’s claim that Trump could not respond to Biden’s political attacks was “categorically false.”
(Trump criticized Biden in almost daily speeches in the courthouse hallway during the trial.)
They also wrote that violent threats from Trump’s supporters to the district attorney’s staff have continued to flow.
According to an affidavit by a New York Police Department officer included as an exhibit in Friday’s motion, the police department recorded 61 “executable threats” against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, his family and other staff members between April and April. office of the district attorney. June, in addition to hundreds of emails. Prosecutors in the case will remain involved in Trump’s appeal, so they should remain protected by the silence order, prosecutors wrote.
The fact that the gag order should no longer limit Trump’s attacks on witnesses does not mean they will not have other protections, prosecutors wrote.
Trump could still be liable for harassment or defamation, they noted, citing his court losses against E. Jean Carroll, and Rudy Giuliani’s loss for defamation by two election workers in Georgia.
“This change of circumstances does not mean that the suspect has carte blanche to resume his despicable practice of publicly attacking individuals involved in a lawsuit against him,” they wrote.
“But protection against such attacks will now come from separate criminal protections against harassment or similar misconduct,” the plaintiffs continued, citing the relevant legal statutes, “as well as the prospect of civil liability for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, or similar statements.”
Read the original article on Business Insider
