In the Trump criminal case, the Manhattan district attorney is asking for a silence order before trial
Prosecutors in Manhattan on Monday asked the judge overseeing the criminal case against Donald J. Trump to ban the former president from attacking witnesses or revealing the identities of jurors.
The requests, filed in documents from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, noted Trump’s “long history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, judges and others involved in legal proceedings against him.”
In outlining a narrowly drafted gag order, the agency heeded closely the terms of a similar order upheld by a federal appeals court in Washington in another Trump criminal case.
The silence order in the Manhattan case, if the judge approves it, would prevent Trump from “making statements or directing others” to make statements about witnesses about their role in the case. The prosecutor, Alvin L. Bragg, also asked that Mr. Trump not comment on the prosecutors in the case — with the exception of Mr. Bragg himself — and members of the court staff.
Mr. Bragg wants the judge, Juan M. Merchan, to protect the jurors as well. His accusers asked that Trump be barred from publicly revealing their identities. And while Mr. Trump and his legal team may know the names of the jurors, Mr. Bragg asked that their addresses be kept secret from the former president.
If Judge Merchan approves the restrictions, he would be just the latest judge to impose a gag order on the former president. There was an injunction in the Washington case, a federal case involving allegations that Mr. Trump plotted to overturn the 2020 election. And the judge in the recently concluded civil fraud trial against Trump ordered Mr. Trump not to comment on court personnel.
The criminal case in Manhattan was the first of four indictments against Trump. Last year, the district attorney’s office charged Mr. Trump with 34 crimes, saying he orchestrated a cover-up of a possible sex scandal involving a porn star that could have hampered his 2016 presidential campaign. The trial starts on March 25.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers will most likely oppose the silence order and could appeal it if Judge Merchan accepts it.
The former president has enjoyed public attacks on his former fixer, Michael D. Cohen, who is now one of Mr. Bragg’s key witnesses. Mr. Cohen paid $130,000 in hush money to the porn star to silence her story of an affair with Mr. Trump and was later reimbursed by Mr. Trump.
In its own filing on Monday, Mr. Trump’s defense team asked the judge to bar Mr. Cohen from testifying.
“Michael Cohen is a liar,” the former president’s lawyers wrote, accusing Mr. Cohen of perjury in Mr. Trump’s civil fraud trial and saying his public statements showed he planned to lie again. (The judge in the civil fraud case concluded that Mr. Cohen had been credible and had “told the truth.”)
Mr. Cohen fired back on Monday, saying in a text message: “As the March 25 date gets closer, Donald and his maverick legal team will try to come up with new ways to delay this case.”