Judge Juan Merchan — known in local legal parlance as a Justice, who is currently handling the criminal trial in New York City on charges that Donald Trump falsified business records, shut down on Friday a push from Trump’s defense team to subpoena a prior target.
That’s Mark Pomerantz, who worked for a while with Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, the lead prosecutor responsible for the present case against the ex-president. Trump has worked Pomerantz into his consistent accusations of political bias amid the various court proceedings that he has faced, including this felony criminal case.
In general, either side can issue a subpoena in legal contexts such as this case, though the court (a judge/judges) retains an opportunity to review and redirect what is transpiring. Merchan granted a request from the prosecution to quash — meaning shut down — the Trump team’s attempt to subpoena Pomerantz on a couple of different grounds, including that it was overbroad. “Defendant’s First Request is impermissibly broad and calls for information protected as privileged work product,” Merchan said in his decision.
The trend continued through a series of additional requests.
“Defendant’s Second and Third Requests are far too broad and amount to an improper fishing expedition into general discovery,” the judge added on Friday. “For example, Defendant’s Second Request seeks “all Documents” for a thirteen-month period from several individuals covering a range of topics including “Cohen’s recollection of interactions with President Trump” and “any form of bias or animosity toward President Trump.””
“Cohen” means Michael Cohen, who is expected to testify next week in Trump’s trial. The allegedly falsified records related to repayments that Cohen received after he — when still aligned personally and professionally with Trump — provided hush money for a woman named Stormy Daniels, who allegedly had a sexual encounter in years past with Trump. Daniels herself testified this week.
