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Manhattan DA asks judge for a gag order in Trump's hush-money case
Updated On: 27 February, 2024 08:23 AM IST | New York | AP
A few days later, prosecutors noted, Bragg`s office received a letter containing a small amount of white powder and a note stating: "Alvin: I`m going to kill you"
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Donald Trump. File pic
Prosecutors in Donald Trump`s New York hush-money criminal case asked a judge Monday to impose a gag order on the former president ahead of next month`s trial, citing what they called his "long history of making public and inflammatory remarks" about people involved in his legal cases. The Manhattan district attorney`s office is seeking what it described as a "narrowly tailored" order that would bar Trump from making or directing others to make public statements about potential witnesses and jurors, as well as statements meant to interfere with or harass the court`s staff, prosecution team or their families. A gag order would add to restrictions put in place after Trump`s arraignment last April that prohibit him from using evidence in the case to attack witnesses. Without limits, prosecutors said, Trump`s rhetoric would "create a significant and imminent threat to the trial by distracting personnel, diverting government resources, and delaying the administration of justice." The judge, Juan Manuel Merchan, didn`t rule immediately. Jury selection is scheduled to start March 25. Barring a last-minute delay, it will be the first of Trump`s four criminal cases to go to trial. A spokesperson for Trump`s presidential campaign called the gag order request "election interference pure and simple" and called the hush-money case a "sham orchestrated by partisan Democrats desperately attempting to prevent" Trump from returning to the White House. Trump lawyer Susan Necheles said the defense will respond in court papers later this week.
The Manhattan case centers on allegations that Trump falsified internal records kept by his company to hide the true nature of payments made to his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen. The lawyer paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 as part of an effort during Trump`s 2016 presidential campaign to bury claims he`d had extramarital sexual encounters. Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, a felony punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in jail time. Trump, the Republican presidential front-runner, has lashed out about the case repeatedly on social media, warning of "potential death & destruction" before his indictment last year, posting a photo on social media of himself holding a baseball bat next to a picture of District Attorney Alvin Bragg and complaining that the judge, Juan Manuel Merchan, is "a Trump-hating judge" with a family full of "Trump haters." Trump is already under a similar gag order in his Washington, D.C., election interference criminal case and was fined $15,000 for twice violating a gag order imposed in his New York civil fraud trial after he made a disparaging social media post about the judge`s chief law clerk. In January, a Manhattan federal judge threatened Trump with expulsion from court in a civil trial on writer E. Jean Carroll`s defamation claims against him after he was heard saying "it is a witch hunt" and "it really is a con job."
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