Donald Trump
Credit: Reuters Photo
New York: Donald Trump's subpoena to Comcast-owned NBCUniversal for material related to a recent documentary about porn star Stormy Daniels was blocked on Friday by the judge overseeing the former US president's April 15 criminal trial.
Justice Juan Merchan said Trump's claim that Daniels and NBC conspired to release the film close to the trial to damage him was unsupported.
"His subpoena and the demands therein are the very definition of a fishing expedition," the judge wrote in a court order.
Trump is accused of covering up his former lawyer Michael Cohen's $130,000 payment to Daniels for her silence before the 2016 election about a sexual encounter she says she had with Trump in 2006.
The Republican presidential candidate has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records and denies any such encounter with Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.
The documentary, Stormy, was released on NBC's streaming service Peacock in March.