Manhattan DA seeks gag order on Trump in criminal hush money case, citing voluminous threats to office staff

Trump’s comments have already resulted in hundreds of threats to the office, prosecutors said in a motion Monday.

“Defendant has a long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and court staff,” the Manhattan district attorney’s office wrote. “Those remarks, as well as the inevitable reactions they incite from defendant’s followers and allies, pose a significant and imminent threat to the orderly administration of this criminal proceeding and a substantial likelihood of causing material prejudice.”

Prosecutors are not asking the judge to block Trump from speaking about District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

They are seeking state Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan to gag Trump from making comments about potential witnesses, lawyers involved in the case other than the DA, court staff, and family members of lawyers and staff. In addition, prosecutors also asked the judge to prevent Trump from making public statements about any prospective juror in the trial.

“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently upheld restrictions on defendant’s extrajudicial speech that are essentially identical to the ones requested by the People here. This Court should accordingly grant the narrowly tailored protective measures sought here,” Bragg’s office wrote.

Trump is accused in 34-count indictment of falsifying business records as part of a cover up to conceal hush money payments before the 2016 election to adult film star Stormy Daniels, who alleged she had an affair with Trump.

Trump denies the affair and has pleaded not guilty. Jury selection is set to begin on March 25.

The motion is one of several filed publicly on Monday. Prosecutors also asked the judge to restrict Trump from knowing the addresses of jurors. They are not asking for an anonymous jury.

“Defendant’s conduct in this and other matters – including his extensive history of attacking jurors in other proceedings – presents a significant risk of juror harassment and intimidation that warrants reasonable protective measures to ensure the integrity of these proceedings, minimize obstacles to jury selection, and protect juror safety,” prosecutor wrote in the motion.

“This Court should also put defendant on notice that he will forfeit any statutory right he may have to access juror names if he engages in any conduct that threatens the safety and integrity of the jury or the jury-selection process.

Threats against Bragg and the office’s staff went from nearly nonexistent in 2022 to a volume that the district attorney’s security detail could no longer assess on their own, causing them to bring in additional assistance from the NYPD’s Threat Assessment & Protection Unit.

In 2022, the first year Bragg was district attorney, one out of 483 threats picked up by the NYPD’s Threat Assessment & Protection Unit involved threats to the district attorney, his family, or employees, according to an affidavit from Nicholas Pistilli, commanding officer of the security detail for Bragg and a sergeant in the NYPD.

The following year, when a grand jury was hearing witness testimony and ultimately indicted Trump, 89 of 577 threats picked up by TAPU were made against Bragg, the office, or his family, Pistilli said.

By March 20, 2023, when there were daily news reports about the investigation and grand jury, “the volume of threatening, harassing, or offensive calls and emails increased significantly, exceeding the capacity of the DA Office’s investigators and NYPD detective detailed to the DA office” and the work was then shifted to TAPU for assessment.

Twice that year, the district attorney’s office received letters with white powder containing messages. One said, “Alvin: I’m going to kill you.” The other letter included imagines of Bragg and Trump and the words ‘you will be sorry,’” according to Pistilli.

“According to the DA Office’s IT systems, at its peak, in March 2023, more than 600 emails and phone calls received by the DA’s office were forwarded for security review; this represents a small subset of the calls and emails received by the office relating to People v. Trump. Around this time, the emails, calls, and text messages received were directed not just to the DA or to the Office generally, but also to senior members of the DA executive team and ADAs publicly associated with People v. Trump, via both Office email or phone and personal email and phone,” Pistilli wrote.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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