'Michael Cohen issue is a concern': Experts dissect new Trump trial gag order demand
One name came up repeatedly Monday night when a group of legal experts discussed on CNN a new gag order request against former President Donald Trump in his upcoming hush money trial.
"The Michael Cohen issue is a concern," said Karen Friedman Agnifilo, a former prosecutor with the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. "If Michael Cohen continues to speak out about Donald Trump, Donald Trump will say he has a right to respond."
The Trump-Cohen feud was a subject of hot debate on an episode of "Anderson 360" with Anderson Cooper that began with a montage of Trump hurling insults at people tied to his criminal and civil court cases.
Cohen is slated to testify in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's criminal case, in which he accuses Trump of falsifying business records to cover up hush money payments made to Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election.
Agnifilo's comments come after Manhattan prosecutors requested the judge impose a gag order on Trump ahead of the March 25 trial drawing on his “long history of making public and inflammatory remarks” about people involved in his civil and criminal cases.
Former prosecutor Elie Honig noted the gag order focused on protecting jurors and witnesses, among whom Cohen is one.
"Donald Trump and Michael Cohen both talk about each other quite aggressively," Honig said. "If this gag order is signed, yes he would violate it if he made verbal, public attacks on Michael Cohen."
Bragg asked for a “narrowly tailored” order that would limit Trump from making disparaging statements about any witnesses and jurors, as well as any statements to cause a distraction or harass the court’s staff, prosecution team or their kin.
Trump's campaign spokesman Steven Cheung shot back against the gag order intentions calling them part of a "2-tiered system of justice implemented against President Trump."
Honig acknowledged that any person, whether they're a former president or not has a "right to criticize prosecutors" but that in this case there is a "need to safeguard the proceedings, especially jurors and witnesses, and that's really the focus of this gag order."
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