Infamous Trump tape can be discussed, not played, during the trial, judge rules

A New York judge ruled Monday that prosecutors can introduce a variety of damaging evidence in Donald J. Trump’s upcoming criminal trial, including references to the infamous “Access Hollywood” recording in which Mr. Trump brags about groping women.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers had tried to keep the tape out of evidence, and the judge, Juan M. Merchan, reached a compromise of sorts. He ruled that it was not necessary for prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office to actually play the tape to a jury, but that they could question witnesses about it.

In other rulings on Monday, the judge strengthened the prosecution ahead of the trial, which is tentatively set to begin in mid-April. Jury selection was originally scheduled to begin on March 25, but the judge last week postponed the trial for at least three weeks after more than 100,000 investigative records came to light.

Unless the judge delays it again, it will almost certainly be the first of Mr. Trump’s four criminal cases to be heard by jurors and will be the first prosecution of a former U.S. president in the country’s history.

Some of the evidence prosecutors plan to present is not directly related to the core accusation in the case — that Mr. Trump covered up a possible sex scandal involving porn star Stormy Daniels to pave his way to the presidency in 2016. the crux of Mr. Trump’s potential motive for approving a hush-money payment to Ms. Daniels. He did so after the Access Hollywood recording was made public, a development that rocked Trump’s campaign in the weeks before Election Day.

The judge reserved a decision on some of the most damaging evidence prosecutors want to introduce: three public allegations of sexual assault brought against Mr. Trump after the tape was released. It can be difficult to convince a judge to allow sexual assault charges, as judges are expected to carefully review evidence that could unfairly harm a defendant in the eyes of the jury.

Justice Merchan will allow prosecutors to introduce evidence about two other hush money deals during the 2016 campaign, one of which involved a former Playboy model. He will also allow prosecutors to call Ms. Daniels to the witness stand, if they wish.

And he denied Mr. Trump’s request to disbar the prosecution’s key witness. The witness — Michael D. Cohen, the former president’s former fixer — paid Ms. Daniels $130,000 during the campaign to keep her from telling her story about a sexual encounter with Mr. Trump.

When Mr. Trump reimbursed Mr. Cohen, prosecutors say, his family business falsely described the reimbursements in its internal records as “legal fees,” continuing the cover-up.

The judge barred Mr. Trump’s lawyers from impeaching Mr. Cohen’s credibility by submitting statements from federal prosecutors who secured a guilty plea from Mr. Cohen in 2018 to financing campaign violations. The recent release of more than 100,000 documents that delayed the case came from the same federal prosecutors.

Mr. Trump’s lawyers cannot mention federal prosecutors’ decision not to charge Mr. Trump in 2018, Judge Merchan ruled. Nor can they claim that the current case against him is new, unusual or unprecedented, as he so often does.

Mr Trump, who recently won the Republican nomination for president, has denied any wrongdoing and has described his legal troubles as politically motivated. In the Manhattan case, he has claimed that the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, a Democrat, is out to get him.

But the judge will prevent his lawyers from using these claims as a defense at trial. The former president’s lawyers cannot attack Mr. Bragg’s motivations or suggest that he filed the case to interfere with Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign.

Outside of court, Mr. Trump can still make these claims, though prosecutors have separately asked Judge Merchan to impose a gag order on the former president, barring him from attacking witnesses in the case. The judge has yet to decide on that request.