Manhattan DA seeks gag order on Trump ahead of hush money trial

• The Manhattan District Attorney's Office asked a judge to impose a gag order on former President Donald Trump ahead of his upcoming trial on charges of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
• Prosecutors want Trump barred from making comments about witnesses and jurors in the case.
• Prosecutors also want him barred from directing other people to make public statements about witnesses or jurors.

The Manhattan District Attorney's Office on Monday asked a judge to impose a gag order on former President Donald Trump ahead of his upcoming trial on charges of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.

Prosecutors want Trump barred from making public comments about witnesses, jurors, trial prosecutors, members of the court staff and any relatives of lawyers and court staff involved in the case.

They also want him barred from directing others to make public statements about any prospective juror or jurors in the trial, which is scheduled to begin March 25 in Manhattan Supreme Court.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office in its motion to Judge Juan Merchan said those restrictions are essentially identical to a gag order on Trump imposed by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., in a case where he is charged with crimes connected to his efforts to reverse his loss in the 2020 election. A federal appeals court upheld that gag order, while slightly narrowing it.

Bragg's filing Monday said, "the need for such protection" from a gag order "is compelling."

Trump "has a long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and