Trump May Use Trial Docs to Scorch Witnesses, DA Says

NEW YORK (AP) — New York prosecutors have requested a choose to bar Donald Trump from utilizing proof from his prison case to assault witnesses, citing what they are saying is the previous president’s historical past of creating “harassing, embarrassing, and threatening statements” about folks he is tangled with in authorized disputes.

The Manhattan district lawyer’s workplace filed courtroom papers Monday asking Choose 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, referred to as discovery, is routine in prison instances, 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. Additionally they need to limit how he views sure delicate materials, asking that he accomplish that solely within the presence of his legal professionals — and that he not have the ability to 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 towards him,” Assistant District Lawyer Catherine McCaw wrote.

That habits, she mentioned, has put “these people and their households at appreciable security threat.”

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 had been left with Trump’s legal professionals.

Prosecutors first raised considerations about Trump probably 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 toes away from her, McCaw informed 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 mentioned prosecutors and Trump’s legal professionals had been near a joint settlement with most of the restrictions prosecutors are actually asking Merchan to impose. Negotiations later broke down, main prosecutors to hunt the choose’s intervention.

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