Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg asked the judge, presiding over the hush-money case he brought against President Trump, to impose a limited gag order on the defendant.    

In a court filing on Monday, Mr. Bragg wrote that “the need for such protection is compelling.” 

Mr. Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsification of New York business records in an attempt to cover up hush-money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels, who claims she had an extramarital affair with Mr. Trump, which he vehemently denies. Mr. Bragg further accuses Mr. Trump of trying to hide “damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election.” 

Mr. Bragg is employing a novel legal strategy as he seeks a felony conviction for what would normally be a misdemeanor. He argues that the intent to commit or conceal another crime, including breaking “state and federal election laws,” raises the charge to a felony, punishable by up to four years in prison, under New York law.     

“Defendant has a long history of making public and inflammatory remarks about the participants in various judicial proceedings against him, including jurors, witnesses, lawyers, and court staff,” the district attorney’s office argued. 

“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 filing states. 

Out of precaution, the prosecutors are requesting that the State Supreme Court Judge, Juan Merchan, gag Mr. Trump and prohibit him from publicizing names of court staff, making comments about potential witnesses and attorneys, and family members of all participants. Prosecutors did not request that the judge bar Mr. Trump from speaking about Mr. Bragg himself.

In a separate motion, prosecutors also asked the judge to keep the addresses of jurors hidden from Mr. Trump. Prosecutors have not, however, requested an anonymous jury. 

An affidavit from a New York Police Department sergeant, Nicholas Pistilli, who is Mr. Bragg’s head of security, argues that there is a  “direct connection between defendant’s public attacks on the District Attorney and threats on this Office.”  

In 2023, the NYPD Threat Assessment and Protection Unit recorded 89 threats against Mr. Bragg, his family or employees of his office. The first threat was made on the same day that Mr. Trump called his followers on social media to “protest, take our nation back!” In March of that same year, when news reports about the criminal indictment of a former president by a grand jury flooded the media, the police received 600 phone calls and emails for review. One letter, mailed to the attorney’s office, said, “Alvin: I’m going to kill you.” 

According to the court filing, “the volume of threatening, harassing, or offensive calls and emails increased significantly, exceeding the capacity of the DA Office’s investigators and NYPD detectives detailed to the DA office.”

In his motion, the district attorney referred to another case against Mr. Trump, the federal election interference case in Washington D.C., where the former president is also under gag order for the same reasons: to protect court staff, attorneys and family members from being threatened by Mr. Trump’s followers.

“The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit recently upheld restrictions on defendant’s extrajudicial speech that are essentially identical to the ones requested by the People here. This Court should accordingly grant the narrowly tailored protective measures sought here,” the court filing states.     

Mr. Trump’s campaign spokesman, Steven Cheung, told ABC News that the gag order, “would impose an unconstitutional infringement on President Trump’s First Amendment rights, including his ability to defend himself, and the rights of all Americans to hear from President Trump.”

Mr. Trump’s defense attorneys in the civil fraud case, which just ended in New York, raised the same freedom of speech argument when they appealed the gag order that Mr. Trump was placed under for that trial. 

Mr. Trump had mocked the judge’s principal law clerk, Allison Greenfield, calling her, without proof, Senator Schumer’s “girlfriend.” The presiding judge, Arthur Engoron, imposed a gag order on Mr. Trump, in an effort to stop the former president from publicly shaming his staff. Mr. Trump was fined twice with a total sum of $15,000 for violating that order. 

When defense attorneys told the judge they felt Ms. Greenfield was “co-judging” the case by constantly passing notes to him, rolling her eyes and whispering into his ear, the judge extended the gag order to include the attorneys as well. Court officials said Ms. Greenfield was deluged by death threats and antisemitic phone calls to her personal cellphone in the wake of being singled out by Mr. Trump.

An appeal of the gag order was denied. But the defense still wants to argue what they deem to be a clear violation of the First Amendment, in front of the highest court in the state, the Court of Appeals. For her part, Ms. Greenfield got good news as the trial ended. A screening panel rated her as “highly qualified” to become a judge herself, putting her well on the road to getting robes of her own.

In another motion, also filed on Monday, the district attorney requested that the judge reject evidence questioning the credibility of Mr. Trump’s nemesis, and former lawyer, Michael Cohen. The troubled witness is accused of having committed perjury when he testified during the civil fraud trial in November. 

Mr. Bragg’s trial, the first criminal trial against a former U.S. president in history, is scheduled to begin with jury selection on March 25 at the Supreme Court, Criminal Term in lower Manhattan.