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Lawyers for Donald J. Trump on Monday pushed back against an effort by the Manhattan district attorneys office to limit the former presidents ability to publicly discuss evidence in the criminal case against him.

The district attorneys office last week asked the judge in the case to restrict Mr. Trumps access to some case material. The office requested that the former president be barred from reviewing the material without his lawyers present, and more broadly from publicizing the prosecutions evidence on social media or through other channels.

In a court filing, Mr. Trumps lawyers called the prosecutors request extreme. They argued that any restrictions placed on Mr. Trump should apply to prosecutors as well, and said that barring the former president from discussing evidence would violate his First Amendment rights.

President Trump is the leading Republican candidate for president of the United States, the filing said. To state the obvious, there will continue to be significant public commentary about this case and his candidacy, to which he has a right and a need to respond, both for his own sake and for the benefit of the voting public.

Mr. Trump has been charged with 34 felonies by the district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, who accused the former president of trying to cover up a potential sex scandal during the 2016 presidential campaign. At a news conference after Mr. Trump was arraigned last month, Mr. Bragg argued that Mr. Trump repeatedly made false statements to conceal a $130,000 hush-money payment made on his behalf to a porn star, Stormy Daniels.

Mr. Trumps lawyers, Todd Blanche, Susan R. Necheles and Joseph Tacopina, said in the court filing that Mr. Bragg made statements at the news conference that would have violated the restrictions he sought had it applied to him. They said that before Mr. Bragg took the podium, they had been nearing an agreement with prosecutors on the terms of an order that would have limited the former presidents access to evidence.

Prosecutors apparently believe that New York law allows the district attorneys office and its witnesses to freely speak and quote from grand jury evidence, but not President Trump or his counsel, the filing said, taking aim at Ms. Daniels, as well as the former fixer who paid her, Michael D. Cohen.

A spokeswoman for the district attorneys office declined to comment.

Mr. Trumps lawyers said that they also took issue with the protective order the document in which prosecutors specified their proposed restrictions on access to case material to the extent that it prevented Mr. Trump from discussing the prosecutions evidence. And they disputed prosecutors argument that Mr. Trump has a history of attacking law enforcement officials who have investigated him.

This history, according to the People, justifies an extremely restrictive protective order that, if entered, would severely hamper President Trumps ability to publicly defend himself and prepare for trial, they wrote.

Ben Protess contributed reporting.

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Trump's Lawyers Fight Bragg's Effort to Limit Access to Evidence - The New York Times