Hush money prosecutors say Trump’s gag order should no longer protect Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, but they want to keep other parts of it

• Prosecutors subpoenaed Judge Donald Trump, who complied with most of the orders to remain silent.

• But they agreed that Trump could now attack witnesses like Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels.

• They warned that Trump could still be held liable for defamation, citing two judgments against him in the E. Jean Carroll case.

Prosecutors in Donald Trump’s criminal case over the hush money case say they disagree with the former president’s renewed attacks on Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels and other witnesses in the case – but want the judge to uphold other parts of his silence order.

In a court filing Friday morning, the Manhattan district attorney’s office urged the judge overseeing the case not to lift the silence order ahead of Trump’s July 11 sentencing hearing.

Trump should not be allowed to freely attack jurors, court staff, prosecutors and their families – all of whom have been the subject of numerous violent threats, they wrote.

But they agreed with Trump’s lawyers that he should no longer be barred from talking about trial witnesses, which included foes such as Cohen and Daniels, now that the trial has ended.

“However, now that the jury has reached its verdict, there is no longer a compelling interest in protecting the witnesses’ ability to testify without interference,” prosecutors wrote.

In May, a jury found Trump guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records, finding that he unlawfully concealed secret payments to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who claims she had an affair with him before the 2016 presidential election.

Before the hearing, the presiding judge, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, issued a silence order limiting Trump’s ability to speak publicly about the case. They banned Trump from talking about court employees, prosecutors, staff, their families, jurors, witnesses and people likely to be called to the witness stand.

Merchan said Trump violated the orders 10 times during the trial and threatened him with prison if he did so again.

“You are the former president of the United States and probably the next president as well,” Merchan told Trump during the hearing. “There are many reasons why imprisonment is truly the last resort for me. Taking such a step would disrupt the proceedings, which I believe you wish to conclude as quickly as possible.”

After the jury’s verdict, Trump’s lead defense attorney, Todd Blanche, asked for the silence order to be lifted, arguing that First Amendment protections should take precedence.

Blanche argued that the order prevented Trump from responding to social media criticism from Daniels and Cohen – Trump’s former personal lawyer who was a key witness in the trial – as well as President Joe Biden in the face of the upcoming presidential debate scheduled for June 27.

“As you might expect, Cohen and Daniels continue to attack President Trump and his qualifications for office in the election he won, based on their deeply biased views on the evidence and in a bid to make even more money for themselves,” Blanche wrote . “More disturbingly, President Biden, his campaign staff and his surrogates have happily entered the fray, commenting on this case and the jury verdict as part of proceedings that Biden initiated outside the courthouse during defense summaries.”

In Friday’s filing, prosecutors in the Manhattan district attorney’s office said Blanche’s claim that Trump cannot respond to Biden’s political attacks is “categorically false.”

(Trump criticized Biden in almost daily speeches in the courtroom corridor during the trial).

They also wrote that violent threats from Trump supporters continued to be made against district attorney employees.

Between April and April, police recorded 61 “actionable threats” against Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, his family and other employees of the district attorney’s office, according to an affidavit from an NYPD officer included as an exhibit in Friday’s motion. June, apart from hundreds of emails. Prosecutors handling the case will remain involved in Trump’s appeal and should therefore continue to be protected by the order of silence, the prosecutors wrote.

Just because the silence order should no longer limit Trump’s attacks on witnesses doesn’t mean they won’t be afforded other protections, prosecutors wrote.

They noted that Trump could still be liable for harassment or defamation, citing legal losses against E. Jean Carroll and Rudy Giuliani’s defamation trial loss at the hands of two Georgia election workers.

“This change in circumstances does not mean that the defendant has carte blanche to resume his reprehensible practice of publicly attacking those involved in the ongoing legal proceedings against him,” they wrote.

“However, protection against such attacks will now come from separate criminal law protections against harassment or similar misconduct,” prosecutors continued, citing the relevant legal provision, “as well as from the perspective of civil liability for defamation, intentional infliction of emotional distress or similar claims.”

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