A New York judge on Thursday rejected a request from news organizations to unseal the 1990 court records from Donald Trump’s first divorce, saying it should not be up to the courts to decide if those documents would be valuable to voters.
The New York Times and Gannett newspapers argued that unsealing the records would “resolve an ongoing campaign controversy” about whether Ivana Trump accused her ex-husband of sexual assault during the course of the divorce proceedings, Politico reported.
In his ruling, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Frank Nervo wrote, “Were the court to make the confidential records available for journalistic, and thus public, scrutiny, it would impermissibly inject itself into the political process by making the value judgment of what information is useful in determining the present candidate’s, or any other candidate’s, fitness for office.”
Nervo also wrote that even if the court ruled that the records hold public value in determining Trump’s fitness for office, that standard would not hold for his ex-wife, who is not a candidate.
Earlier this month, lawyers for Donald and Ivana Trump both filed legal briefs opposing the motion.
