Donald Trump dealt blow by timing of Stormy Daniels trial
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The first of Donald Trump’s criminal trials will take place next month, a judge ruled on Thursday, potentially derailing the former president’s re-election hopes.
In a blow to Mr Trump, Justice Juan Merchan scheduled a date of March 25 for the Republican frontrunner’s trial over an alleged 2016 hush money payment to pornstar Stormy Daniels.
Mr Merchan, who is overseeing the case, took less than 10 minutes to dismiss a series of motions filed by Mr Trump’s legal team in an attempt to have the case thrown out.
The ruling is a critical juncture in Mr Trump’s legal troubles and could have seismic ramifications for his re-election hopes.
It means Mr Trump, 77, will go on trial in the middle of the Republican primaries just three weeks after Super Tuesday, and almost a year after he became the first former president to be criminally indicted.
Complaining about the time he is spending in court in the midst of his campaign for the Republican nomination for president, Mr Trump said ahead of the ruling: “How can you run for election if you are sitting in a courthouse all of the time. I’m supposed to be in South Carolina right now.”
Speaking to reporters after the court session, he added: “They want to keep me nice and busy so I can’t campaign”.
Todd Blanche, Mr Trump’s lawyer, told the judge during the hearing that it would not be fair for him to stand trial while running for president.
“It should not happen in this country,” Mr Blanche, who had several pointed interactions with Mr Merchan, said.
Mr Merchan responded: “That’s not a legal argument. I’ll see you on March 25.”
The trial will start with jury selection on 25 March and the judge said it is expected to last for five or six weeks.
Ahead of his court appearance, Mr Trump said he was “heading to yet another courthouse in Manhattan on a case that would have never been brought if I wasn’t running for Pres”.
Railing against Joe Biden and the Department of Justice on Truth Social, he claimed the case was “election interference”.
Mr Trump faces a total of 34 felony charges for falsifying business records brought by Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan District Attorney and Democrat. He has pleaded not guilty to all of them.
The charges are punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in prison time.
Over the past year, Mr Trump has lashed out at Mr Merchan as a “Trump-hating judge,” asked him to step down from the case and has sought to move the case from state court to federal court, all to no avail.
Mr Merchan has acknowledged making several small donations to Democrats, including $15 to Mr Trump’s rival Mr Biden, but said he was certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial”.
Mr Trump attended Thursday’s New York court session after toying with the idea of turning up in Georgia, where a separate hearing was being held to review allegations of a romantic relationship between Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis and a special prosecutor she hired to assist with the case.
Dressed in his trademark red tie and navy blue suit, Mr Trump sat quietly during the hearing, occasionally conferring with his lawyers.
The defence and prosecution spent some time thrashing out a series of more than 40 questions jurors will be asked in order to determine whether they can fairly sit on the jury.
Those debated included asking if they have ever been part of an “anarchist group”, such as the QAnon movement or the Proud Boys, whether they believe the 2020 election was stolen and if they have ever had bumper stickers on their car in support of or against a political candidate.
Mr Merchan’s decision comes the day before the judge overseeing his civil fraud trial is expected to make a ruling on how severely to punish Mr Trump and his business, The Trump Organisation, for inflating the value of assets to secure favourable loan terms.
New York’s attorney general is seeking a mammoth potentially $350 million fine, if Justice Arthur Engoron agrees. That would come weeks after a jury found the Republican front runner should pay $83 million in punitive damages to sex abuse victim E Jean Carroll for repeatedly defaming her.
The New York criminal case centres on allegations Mr Trump participated in the cover-up of a $130,000 cover-up hush money payment to Ms Daniels during the 2016 presidential campaign. She claims she was paid to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Mr Trump.
It is alleged the payments were made in a bid “to conceal damaging information and unlawful activity from American voters before and after the 2016 election”.
The case also hinges on a $150,000 payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about Mr Trump having a child out of wedlock.
Mr Trump has continued to deny the charges and said the decision by prosecutors to charge him was an “attack on our country”.
In an attempt to have the case thrown out, Mr Trump’s lawyers decried the case in court papers as a “discombobulated package of politically motivated charges marred by legal defects”.
The former president has always insisted he is a victim of “political persecution” for each of the 91 felony charges he faces in a complex web of four criminal cases in Washington DC, Florida, Georgia and Manhattan.
The recent postponement of a March 4 trial date in Mr Trump’s Washington election interference case removed a major hurdle to starting the New York case on time.
