Prosecutors for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office had issued the subpoenas seeking emails from Melania Trump and other documents as part of Mr. Bragg's case against the former president over alleged falsification of business records.

But those subpoenas were quashed by New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan, who said in a ruling (pdf) attached to a July 27 court filing that the subpoenas were far too broad in scope.

The requests for Melania Trump's emails, and other documents "would yield significantly more responsive records than necessary," the judge wrote in his ruling, which was issued on July 7 but made public when attached to a July 27 filing that included a letter from prosecutors to Judge Merchan, seeking clarification on an unrelated matter.

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In that letter, the prosecutors were seeking Judge Merchan's input on their request for the entire videotaped deposition Mr. Trump gave to attorneys in relation to a separate civil lawsuit brought against the former president by writer E. Jean Carroll, per the letter.

Portions of the videotaped deposition were played at the Carroll trial, but Judge Merchan did not order the entire tape to be handed over to prosecutors. Instead, the judge asked prosecutors to seek clarification from Judge Lewis A. Kaplan whether their subpoena for the entire tape violated a protective order Judge Kaplan had issued in the Carroll v. Trump case.

In relation to the videotape subpoena, Judge Merchan ruled that it's "not overbroad or otherwise inappropriate," although he added that he was not able to determine if any portions of the tape violated Judge Kaplan's protective order.

But that was not the case with a pair of subpoenas that sought all emails between former Trump executive assistant Rhona Graff and Melania Trump, all emails between Ms. Graff and former director of Oval Office operations Keith Schiller, and all travel itineraries prepared for the former president for a period covering 25 months.