Left: Former President Donald Trump arrives to deliver remarks during the Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Md., Feb. 24, 2024. (Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images). Right: Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, Jr. makes a law enforcement-related announcement at the Manhattan DA Offices on February 08, 2024. (Photo by: NDZ/STAR MAX/IPx )
The names and addresses of the jurors who will determine former President Donald Trump’s fate in his upcoming New York City hush money trial should be kept relatively secret, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued in a Monday court filing.
The district attorney’s office is asking New York Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan to issue a protective order that would keep jurors’ names limited to the parties and attorneys in the case — while limiting jurors’ personal and business addresses to attorneys.
The district attorney’s filing cites the defendant’s “extensive history of attacking jurors in other proceedings” as well as his conduct in the ongoing case in order to justify the two-tiered protective order.
Bragg says such restrictions are necessary because there is a “significant risk of juror harassment and intimidation” from Trump. And, the motion argues, a protection order is a valid remedy under Empire State statute and the “inherent authority” of the court itself.
Awarding the state the relief sought over the juror protection issue would “minimize obstacles to jury selection, and protect juror safety,” and “ensure the integrity” of the case by reducing “the risk of jury tampering and intimidation,” the DA’s motion argues.
Bragg’s office also notes that “more extensive restrictions” than those being sought by the state of New York have been placed on juror information “in recent cases involving this very defendant.”
In New York, the 45th president faces a 34-count felony indictment over allegedly falsified business records related to payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016. Those charges against Trump marked the first time in U.S. history that a former president faced a criminal indictment. Now, Trump is battling back against four criminal indictments in three states and the District of Columbia.
Trump’s various legal headaches — and his vituperative foibles in characteristic public responses to those other cases — form the basis of a separate motion filed by Bragg’s office on Monday.
In a 331-page motion for an order restricting extrajudicial statements, the DA is requesting a gag order that would severely limit the critiques Trump could make as the case moves forward.
Bragg’s request for a gag order cites the ex-president’s “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks” attacking jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and court staff — and includes dozens of social media posts in order to substantiate that history.
“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,” the gag order request argues.
Similar to the juror protection request, Bragg’s office notes that restrictions on Trump’s speech “that are essentially identical to the ones requested” in the hush money case have been upheld by a federal appeals court in his conspiracy case over the Jan. 6 attack.
Notably, the proposed order to put a lid on Trump’s likely forthcoming outrage would be somewhat porous: Bragg is fine with a target remaining on his own back so long as the defendant does not criticize the district attorney’s office staff, court staff, or any other attorney in the case — or the aforementioned’s family members.
The gag order motion also references the juror protection motion — asserting that both requests will work hand-in-hand and allow the court to “protect jurors as well from defendant’s extrajudicial comments.”
Trial in the case is slated to begin March 25.
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