A prosecutor’s decision not to reveal their witness list for Donald Trump’s hush money trial shows that Trump’s social media attacks have consequences, a former federal prosecutor said.
Renato Mariotti, who is now a legal analyst, was reacting to a prosecutor’s decision not to release the names of the first three witnesses to Trump’s attorneys. “I can’t fault them for that,” Judge Juan Merchan said on Thursday, as Trump’s lawyers protested.
Writing on X, formerly Twitter, Mariotti noted that Trump’s social media attack on witnesses “finally have real consequences.”
“Typically, the prosecution *does* reveal the witnesses it will call the next day. Judge Merchan exercising discretion to penalize behavior that endangers witnesses will be a far more effective tool than a $1,000 fine,” Mariotti wrote.
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MSNBC reported that Trump attorney Todd Blanche asked who the district attorney’s office planned to call as their first three witnesses. Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass refused to say because of Trump’s negative social media comments about potential witnesses in the case.
Blanche offered a commitment that Trump wouldn’t post comments about witnesses.
“I don’t think you can make that representation,” Merchan replied, according to a report on the news site Raw Story.
Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is the first former president in United States history to stand trial in a criminal case. He has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records.
The prosecution seeks to prove that before the 2016 presidential election, Trump paid, or discussed paying, two women—adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal—not to disclose his alleged affairs with them.
As part of the “pattern of behavior” narrative to back up those claims, prosecutors allege that a payment was made to a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to know that Trump allegedly fathered a child with another woman.
Prosecutors say National Enquirer publisher American Media Inc. bought the rights to the doorman’s story following an agreement between its then CEO David Pecker and Trump to look out for negative stories about the then presidential candidate. Trump has denied all the allegations and says he is the target of a political witch hunt.
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump’s attorney on Thursday.
A gag order imposed by Merchan in March prohibits Trump from making public comments about prosecutors, witnesses or jurors in the case, or their families, in the high-profile case. It was expanded in April to include prohibitions on Trump making statements about Merchan’s family and that of the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.
Writing on his social media platform, Truth Social, on Wednesday, Trump posted a quote from Fox News commentator Jesse Watters, who said: “They are catching undercover liberal activists lying to the judge in order to get on the Trump jury.”
In response, speaking on the anti-Trump MeidasTouch Legal AF podcast, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a legal analyst and former Manhattan chief assistant district attorney, said Trump “had violated the gag order” by reposting what Watters said about the jurors.
Agnifilo added: “I think the judge is going to go rips**t because you cannot say anything like that about a juror. That is going to intimidate a prospective juror.”
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.