NEW YORK — New York prosecutors have requested a decide to bar Donald Trump from utilizing proof from his felony case to assault witnesses, citing what they are saying is the previous president’s historical past of constructing “harassing, embarrassing, and threatening statements” about individuals he’s tangled with in authorized disputes.
The Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace filed courtroom papers Monday asking Judge Juan Manuel Merchan for a protecting order that will put strict guardrails round Trump’s entry to and use of proof turned over by prosecutors previous to trial. That form of proof sharing, known as discovery, is routine in felony circumstances, and is meant to assist guarantee a good trial.
Prosecutors need to block Trump from posting proof to social media or offering it to 3rd events. They additionally need to limit how he views sure delicate materials, asking that he accomplish that solely within the presence of his attorneys – and that he not be capable to copy, {photograph} or transcribe these information.
Trump “has a longstanding and perhaps singular history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, trial jurors, grand jurors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him,” Assistant District Attorney Catherine McCaw wrote.
That conduct, she mentioned, has put “those individuals and their families at considerable safety risk.”
Merchan didn’t instantly rule on the prosecution’s request. McCaw, in her submitting, requested him to schedule a listening to on the matter subsequent week.
Email messages looking for remark have been left with Trump’s attorneys.
Prosecutors first raised considerations about Trump probably weaponizing the invention course of at his April 4 arraignment on costs that he falsified information at his firm as a part of a broader 2016 scheme to make secret hush-money funds to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters. Trump has denied wrongdoing – or having extramarital affairs – and pleaded not responsible.
With Trump sitting on the protection desk simply toes away from her, McCaw informed Merchan {that a} protecting order was wanted to “ensure the sanctity of the proceedings as well as the sanctity of the discovery materials.”
At the time, McCaw mentioned prosecutors and Trump’s attorneys have been near a joint settlement with lots of the restrictions prosecutors at the moment are asking Merchan to impose. Negotiations later broke down, main prosecutors to hunt the decide’s intervention.
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