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Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg filed a motion on Tuesday asking the court to find former President Donald Trump in contempt of court for allegedly breaking the partial gag order in the criminal case in New York.
In the Tuesday filing, prosecutors cited the former president’s recent posts on Truth Social, where he was “attacking two known witnesses — Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels,” according to the filing.
“Prosecutors argue that the social media posts violate the partial gag order Trump is under in the trial, which prohibits him from making public statements on possible witnesses in the case. Prosecutors also asked that Trump be fined $3,000 for violations of the gag order in three separate social media posts,” Axios reported.
“Defendant is not above the law, and he cannot simply disregard judicial orders that upset him,” Bragg wrote in the motion, which was filed on the second day of jury selection in the trial.
“Defendant’s recent social media posts plainly violate the order because they target known witnesses concerning their participation in this criminal proceeding,” Bragg wrote.
Former President Trump, who denies any wrongdoing in the New York criminal case, has repeatedly criticized it as a politically motivated witch hunt.
Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s New York criminal trial, has scheduled a hearing for April 23 to consider prosecutors’ request to hold the former president in contempt.
This has already been a busy week for Trump in the “hush money” case.
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin weighed in on Trump’s criminal trial this week, saying the former president got some “good news” from the judge.
Trump, the 45th president of the United States and the presumed nominee of the Republican Party, began his criminal trial on Monday, with prospective jurors gathering in a New York City courtroom as Trump observed.
Trump is accused of fabricating almost thirty business documents to conceal a payment made to Stormy Daniels, a porn star who claimed to have had a brief sexual encounter with him in 2006.
During a segment on CNN, Toobin spoke about Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan’s ruling to keep the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape from the jury, saying it was an “appropriate decision for Trump’s benefit.”
“Jeff, I‘m wondering what you make the different evidence that the judge has ruled in miscible. Karen McDougal, the former playmate that foreign president allegedly had an affair with, will be allowed to testify and on the other hand, the Access Hollywood tape, which everybody knows about can‘t be played for the jury,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper said.
Toobin responded: “I thought those were very reasonable conclusions by the judge. The Karen McDougal story is very similar to the Stormy Daniels story. It is money paid for silence for women who were allegedly involved with Trump at Trump‘s behalf as the idea that Trump was trying to keep information from the voters on the eve of, on the eve of the election by, by paying this money or having his allies at the National Enquirer pay pay Karen McDougal.”
“I also thought it was appropriate to keep the access Hollywood tape out. That is the case. That is a tape about nonconsensual sexual contact, with Donald Trump saying what everyone knows he said about what he could do with women,” Toobin continued.
“That‘s not what this case is about. Both Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal claim that this was consensual sex, and I thought keeping that away from the jury, even though they probably already know about it, was an appropriate decision for Trump‘s benefit,” he added.
WATCH:
Manhattan Judge Juan Merchan, the presiding judge in Trump’s hush money case, made his first crucial ruling shortly after the historic proceedings began on Monday.
Merchan started the trial by denying Trump’s motion for recusal, telling the court that the former president’s arguments lacked basis.
Trump has accused the judge of being biased against him and called on him to recuse himself from the case. The former president has also repeatedly attacked Merchan’s daughter over her political consulting work, which includes employment at a Democratic firm that worked with Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign.
In April of last year, Bragg filed 34 first-degree charges against Trump for falsifying business records. The charges also relate to purported hush-money payments made during the 2016 presidential campaign.
Bragg alleged that Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election.”
“During the election, Trump and others employed a ‘catch and kill’ scheme to identify, purchase, and bury negative information about him and boost his electoral prospects,” Bragg alleged in the indictment last year. “TRUMP then went to great lengths to hide this conduct, causing dozens of false entries in business records to conceal criminal activity, including attempts to violate state and federal election laws.”
