A judge in New York granted porn star Stormy Daniels‘s request that a subpoena she received from former President Donald Trump’s attorneys be quashed, according to a court order filed Wednesday.
Judge Juan Merchan said the subpoena, which Trump’s defense team issued to Daniels in March to obtain documents from Daniels related to his hush money case, was “overbroad.”
“The Court of Appeals has held that a subpoena is properly quashed when the party issuing the subpoena fails ‘to demonstrate any theory of relevancy and materiality, but instead, merely desire[s] the opportunity for an unrestrained foray into confidential records in the hope that the unearthing of some unspecified information [will] enable [them] to impeach witness[es],’” Merchan noted.
Through the subpoena, Trump’s attorneys sought details related to the eponymous documentary Daniels released this year that centers on her experiences with Trump. Her claims are at the heart of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against the former president.
Bragg, an elected Democrat, has accused Trump of falsifying records of payments to Daniels following the 2016 presidential election. Bragg alleges that Trump, through his then-attorney Michael Cohen, helped arrange payments to Daniels to silence her after she threatened to come forward days ahead of Election Day about an alleged affair she had with Trump years earlier.
The subpoena sought all documents from Daniels related to the documentary and its premiere, editorial and marketing decisions involved in the documentary’s production and release, any compensation people received in relation to it, and any documents tying the documentary to prosecutors in Bragg’s office, among other material.
An official served Daniels the subpoena at a Brooklyn nightclub on March 18, but she ignored it, and her attorneys and prosecutors later filed requests that the judge quash it.
The server said, according to an affidavit, that when Daniels arrived at the club, he informed her that he had a subpoena and read the case information to her.
However, when he attempted to hand it to her, “she did not take [the papers] in hand and [he] left them at her feet in her presence.”
“She did not acknowledge me and kept walking inside the venue, and she had no expression on her face,” the server wrote.
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Daniels is expected to appear as a witness during Trump’s trial and recount how she came to receive payments and sign a nondisclosure agreement in 2016.
The trial began last week and is scheduled to continue through late May.
