Trump might use evidence from criminal case to burn witnesses
NEW YORK — New York prosecutors have asked a judge 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 Decide Juan Manuel Merchan for a protecting order that may put strict guardrails round Trump’s entry to and use of proof turned over by prosecutors previous to trial. That sort of proof sharing, referred to as discovery, is routine in felony circumstances, and is meant to assist guarantee a good trial.
Prosecutors wish to block Trump from posting proof to social media or offering it to 3rd events. Additionally they wish to limit how he views sure delicate materials, asking that he achieve this solely within the presence of his attorneys — and that he not be capable of copy, {photograph} or transcribe these information.
Trump “has a longstanding and maybe singular historical past of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, trial jurors, grand jurors, judges, and others concerned in authorized proceedings in opposition to him,” Assistant District Lawyer Catherine McCaw wrote.
That habits, she stated, has put “these people and their households at appreciable security danger.”
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.
E mail messages searching for remark have been left with Trump’s attorneys.
Prosecutors first raised considerations about Trump doubtlessly weaponizing the invention course of at his April 4 arraignment on prices 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 ft away from her, McCaw advised Merchan {that a} protecting order was wanted to “make sure the sanctity of the proceedings in addition to the sanctity of the invention supplies.”
On the time, McCaw stated 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 choose’s intervention.
