The Manhattan District Attorney’s office is seeking an extension of the restraining order against former President Donald Trump, citing increased death threats against DA Alvin Bragg.
They argue that Trump’s public statements have increased tensions and led to threats against Bragg and his team before Trump’s July 11 sentencing on 34 felony counts.
As The New York Times reports:
The order, issued before Mr. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial began in mid-April, bars him from attacking witnesses, jurors, court staff and relatives of the judge who presided over the trial, Juan M. Merchan.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers have sought to have the order lifted since Mr. Trump’s conviction in late May. But in a 19-page filing on Friday, prosecutors argued that while Justice Merchan no longer needed to enforce the portion of the gag order relating to trial witnesses, he should keep in place the provisions protecting jurors, prosecutors, court staff and their families.
The New York Police Department has logged 56 “actionable threats” since the beginning of April directed against Alvin L. Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney who brought the case, and against his family and employees, according to an affidavit provided with the filing.
Prosecutors said the 56 logged complaints did not include numerous “threatening emails and phone calls,” which the NYPD are “not tracking as threat cases.”
Mr. Trump was convicted on May 30 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to a $130,000 payoff made to the porn star Stormy Daniels. The money was meant to cover up a sexual tryst she says she had with Mr. Trump in 2006, a decade before he was elected president. (Mr. Trump, 78, has continued to deny ever having had sex with Ms. Daniels.)
In April, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office reported receiving two envelopes containing a white, powdery substance intended for DA Alvin Bragg.
One of the envelopes reportedly contained a letter that used an expletive to refer to Bragg’s weight.
Another contained an explicit message to Bragg, “ALVIN: I AM GOING TO KILL YOU,” followed by 13 exclamation points.
Investigators determined the substances in both cases weren’t harmful.
Trump is potentially facing up to four years in prison or alternative sanctions, including home confinement.
This is a breaking news story. Please check back for updates.
