Bragg Asks Judge to Extend Trump’s Gag Order, Citing Deluge of Threats

Prosecutors in Manhattan said on Friday that a judge should extend major elements of a gag order that was placed on Donald J. Trump, citing dozens of death threats made to District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg and other officials.

The order, issued before Mr. Trump’s Manhattan criminal trial began in mid-April, bars him from attacking witnesses, jurors, court staff and members of the family of the judge who presided over the trial, Juan M. Merchan. It does not prohibit Mr. Trump from criticizing Mr. Bragg, Justice Merchan or the trial itself.

In a 19-page filing on Friday, prosecutors argued that Justice Merchan no longer needed to enforce the portion of the gag order relating to trial witnesses, but they said 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 Mr. Bragg, his family and staff members in his office, according to an affidavit provided with the filing.

That number, prosecutors said, did not include hundreds of “threatening emails and phone calls” received by Mr. Bragg’s office in recent months, which the police 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.)

Mr. Trump is scheduled to be sentenced on July 11. He faces up to four years in prison, or lesser punishments like probation or home confinement.

The first American president to face — and be convicted of — criminal charges, Mr. Trump has worn the guilty verdict as a badge of honor, using it to raise money and presenting himself as a “political prisoner.”

He has also continued to voice the false theory that his prosecution was the work of a nefarious conspiracy among Democrats, including President Biden and Mr. Bragg.

This is a developing story and will be updated.