Former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at 40 Wall Street after a pretrial hearing March 25, 2024 in New York.
Michael M. Santiago | Getty Images
Donald Trump’s “extreme and deliberate provocations” during his secret trial are intended to undermine the case, the Manhattan district attorney said Monday as he urged a judge to reinforce the silence on the former president.
“Trump’s dangerous, violent and reprehensible rhetoric fundamentally threatens the integrity of these proceedings and is intended to intimidate witnesses and trial participants, including this Court,” prosecutor Alvin Bragg said in a scathing Supreme Court filing from New York.
Bragg’s request came after Trump, in numerous social media posts, targeted the adult daughter of Judge Juan Mercan because of her work for a Democratic political firm. Bragg’s indictment accuses Trump of falsifying business records to conceal a secret payment to porn star Stormy Daniels before the 2016 presidential election.
“There is no constitutional right to target this Court’s family, much less the blatant lies that served as the flimsiest pretexts for Defendants’ attacks,” Bragg’s filing says.
Trump “knows what he’s doing, and everyone else knows it too,” the prosecutor wrote.
Merchan imposed a mandate of silence last week that prohibits Trump from speaking about likely witnesses and other figures, but does not explicitly prohibit criticism of the judge or his family.
Bragg’s office asked the judge Thursday to “clarify or confirm” that the order shields the family from court.
Monday’s filing raises the stakes: Bragg wants Merchan to “clarify or expand the order to protect members of the Court’s family” and warn Trump that “any future failure to comply with the order will result in sanctions.”
Trump’s lawyers responded later Monday that the silence order did not apply to Merchan’s family and that it should not be extended because it is “already an unlawful prior restraint that unduly restricts the electoral advocacy of the presumptive Republican candidate.”
Their filing also says they will once again attempt to remove Merchan from the case, citing “changed circumstances and newly discovered evidence.”
Their first attempt, last May, was for Merchan’s daughter’s role at Authentic Campaigns, a progressive consultant whose clients include President Joe Biden, Trump’s Democratic rival. Mercan refused to recuse himself.
Trump’s filing Monday also suggests that Merchan “violated Canon 3” by participating in a recent interview with The Associated Press, even though the judge declined to speak about the case. Canon 3 exhorts judges to minimize the risk of conflict between their personal lives and their judicial obligations.
Trump’s lawyers also suggested it was problematic for the New York Office of Judicial Administration to issue a statement Wednesday clarifying that a social media account no longer belonged to Mercan’s daughter.
But the office released that statement only after Trump sent multiple messages on social media claiming the account currently belonged to Merchan’s daughter and that it showed evidence of bias.
The secret trial is scheduled to begin jury selection on April 15. Trump’s lawyers, who have previously sought to dismiss the indictment or delay the trial, are currently seeking a “significant” delay on the grounds that media coverage of the trial has been “prejudicial.” “.
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