In Manhattan court, Judge Juan Merchan has expressed openness to a push from the office of local District Attorney Alvin Bragg towards a restrictive order targeting Trump and blocking the former president from publicly disclosing materials obtained from Bragg’s team during the discovery process in Donald’s currently unfolding case.
The discovery process is a pretrial period in which both sides can accumulate relevant evidence in the form of both documentary materials and depositions. Personally, Trump has a long history of seeking to essentially weaponize the judicial process or at least his place in it against his opponents, even simply through his nearly endless and antagonistic rants online against the investigators at the Justice Department handling probes into election meddling and harboring classified documents. He is now facing criminal charges in Manhattan connected to hush money provided to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election in connection to an affair the two allegedly had. Trump’s own case focuses on allegedly falsified business records meant to conceal reimbursements to the guy who provided the hush money, Michael Cohen.
It’s obvious that Trump’s public rhetoric can inspire his supporters, whether those turning to violence or even just the threat of it are simply looking for an excuse or have been basically brainwashed into Trump’s cult. As in so many other similar circumstances, both Bragg and Merchan have faced threats to their safety and lives in connection to their involvement in the case against Trump, which required approval from a grand jury, meaning not just Bragg himself, before it was brought.
“If he’s running for office, you’re saying he should be held to a different standard from all other defendants who come into this courtroom?” Merchan asked a lawyer for Trump, Todd Blanche. These quotes were reported by the New York Daily News. Merchan also blasted the idea that he wasn’t already helping maintain protections for Trump’s civil and political rights in his handling of the case. “Obviously Mr. Trump is different. It would be foolish of me to say that he’s not,” he said, per the News. “He is different. I have to apply the law as I see fit, and in that regard, I am bending over backward and straining to allow him to advance his candidacy… The last thing I want to do is infringe on his or anyone else’s First Amendment rights.” Trump wants his case moved into federal court.
