Trump Slams Alvin Bragg for Trying To Keep Him Away From ‘Sensitive’ Evidence — and Even the Press Agrees

An unlikely alliance is emerging, one set against District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s efforts to keep a firm grip over evidence — via a protective order — in the criminal case against President Trump. It turns out to be an issue on which Mr. Trump and the press find themselves on the same side.A hearing Thursday at Lower Manhattan — Mr. Trump is not likely to attend — is set to discuss the rules of the road for the case, which is expected to go to trial next year but for which preliminary procedural skirmishes are under way. Mr. Trump affixed his signature to a request from NBC News and others pushing for greater transparency in the landmark case. The strange bedfellows — the press and the former president — have been brought together by Mr. Bragg’s unusual request to limit Mr. Trump’s ability to discuss materials that surface through discovery. The prosecutor also asked the presiding judge, Juan Merchan, to limit Mr. Trump’s ability to view “sensitive” materials to settings where his lawyers are present. Mr. Bragg also moved to bar Mr. Trump entirely from viewing another stratum of evidence — forensic phone records of key witnesses — without the prior approval of the district attorney’s office. The former president’s lawyers, but not their client, would be permitted to set eyes on these records. That has prompted opposition from both Mr. Trump’s team and a collection of press organizations. The former calls Mr. Bragg’s request “unconstitutional” and worries over “an unprecedented and extraordinarily broad muzzle on a leading contender for the presidency of the United States,” while the latter are concerned about their ability to cover the case. In advance of the hearing, Mr. Trump’s lawyers — Joseph Tacopina, Todd Blacnhe, and Susan Necheles — wrote to Judge Merchan that to “state the obvious, there will continue to be significant public commentary about this case and his candidacy, to which he has a right and a need to respond, both for his own sake and for the benefit of the voting public.” Mr. Trump argues that the proposed protective order “would severely hamper President Trump’s ability to publicly defend himself and prepare for trial” and that the people “fail to point to even one instance where President Trump has misused discovery that was obtained by him or his lawyers.” The filing from Mr. Trump’s team argues that the people “apparently believe that New York law allows the District Attorney’s Office and its witnesses to freely speak and quote from grand jury evidence, but not President Trump or his counsel.” It points to Mr. Bragg’s loquaciousness regarding the case, as well as commentary from one of his former deputies, Mark Pomerantz. The letter adds that Mr. Trump “cannot be the only interested party in this case whose speech about the evidence in the case is restricted by the court.” The government retorts that the defendant “has a constitutional right to speak publicly about this case, and the People do not seek to infringe upon that right.”Mr. Bragg justifies that asymmetry by marking that Mr. Trump “has a longstanding and perhaps singular history of attacking witnesses, investigators, prosecutors, trial jurors, grand jurors, judges, and others involved in legal proceedings against him, putting those individuals and their families at considerable safety risk.”Then again, too, Mr. Bragg has a long history of attacking the defendant, starting with his campaign to be district attorney in the first place. The district attorney has already been rebuffed once before in this case, by a federal judge, Mary Kay Vyskocil, who ruled that congressional Republicans could subpoena Mr. Pomerantz. The terms of that appearance were eventually negotiated between Mr. Bragg and Congressman Jim Jordan, but not before Judge Vyskocil reprimanded Mr. Bragg to the effect that “no one is above the law,” including Manhattan’s top law enforcement official.

Trump Slams Alvin Bragg for Trying To Keep Him Away From ‘Sensitive’ Evidence — and Even the Press Agrees

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