Hush money judge says Michael Cohen needs to stop talking about Trump

The judge presiding over Donald Trump’s criminal hush money trial in Manhattan has instructed prosecutors to tell Michael Cohen to stop talking about the case and the former president.

Mr Trump’s attorneys have repeatedly urged New York Justice Juan Merchan find a way to gag the former president’s one-time “fixer” turned sworn nemesis and shameless critic.

Cohen, who paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to silence her story about having sex with Mr Trump in 2006, is a key witness in the case against the former president. Mr Trump is accused of reimbursing his former attorney the $130,000 in a series of payments falsely lableled as “legal expenses.” He is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records and has pleaded not guilty.

Cohen is now expected to testify in the trial on Monday. He isone of two final witnesses for the prosecution in a trial stretching into a fourth week of testimony.

In court on Friday, defense attorney Todd Blanche told the judge that Mr Trump’s former lawyer is “becoming a real problem” throughout the trial.

Cohen “continues to speak publicly about this trial and President Trump,” including in a recent TikTok video “wearing a white T-shirt with a picture of President Trump behind bars” and “announcing that he’s running for Congress,” Mr Blanche told Judge Merchan.

Mr Blanche said he wants Cohen “prohibited from talking” about the case, just “like Trump is”.

“It’s becoming a problem every single day that president Trump is not allowed to respond to this witness, but this witness is allowed to continue to talk,” Mr Blanche said.

Assistant District Attorney Joshua Steinglass dismissed the defence’s argument, arguing that prosecutors “have no control over what they do, and we have repeatedly,