A State Supreme Court judge blocked former President Trump’s attempt to gain access to NBC’s documentary material related to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan said the Trump lawyer’s subpoena was “far too broad” and did not meet the legal standard to compel NBC Universal to turn over documents and other items related to the documentary “Stormy.”
“In the instant matter, the Defendant seeks ‘all’ documents, including but not limited to vague and overbroad requests,” Merchan wrote in the ruling issued Friday.
On Wednesday, the judge rejected Trump’s request to delay his April 15 trial until the Supreme Court issues a decision on the presidential immunity matter Trump claimed in his other cases.
With the Friday block, Trump’s team suffered another defeat less than two weeks before his hush-money criminal trial in New York where Daniels is a key prosecution witness.
The case, the first of the four Trump criminal cases, argues the former president falsified business records to hide the types of payments to his former fixer Michael Cohen, who paid Daniels $130,000 to hush her claims of having an adultery affair with the former president before he was in the White House.
Trump’s attorney tried to block Daniels and Cohen from testifying and subpoenaed NBC Universal on March 11 in hopes of getting documents related to the documentary. They said the subpoena would prove collusion between Daniels and NBC Universal, an alleged coordination to put out the documentary right before the beginning of the trial for their financial benefit.
Merchan said the claims from Trump’s lawyers were “purely speculative and unsupported,” saying he would have blocked it because it sought to “rifle through privileged documents of a news organization.”