Donald Trump Says He Needs to Pause His Criminal Trial So He Can Attend Son Barron's High School Graduation

The judge overseeing Trump's Manhattan case said he will need to see how the trial timeline unfolds before deciding whether he can grant the defendant's request

In the first hours of Donald Trump's criminal trial on Monday, April 15, former first son Barron Trump became an unexpected topic of conversation.

Before inviting potential jurors into the courtroom to kick off the jury selection process, Judge Juan Merchan hashed out some final pieces of business with the involved parties, discussing the former president's gag orders, going over evidence that will not be admissible in court and emphasizing that there is no basis for recusing himself from the case, as Trump previously requested in an apparent delay tactic.

Then, Trump's counsel asked the judge to adjourn court on a few specific dates so that they could attend other events, including a Supreme Court hearing this month and Barron's high school graduation in May.

Related: Donald Trump Appears to Fall Asleep in Court During First Day of Criminal Trial: Report

While Merchan quickly declined to adjourn for the Supreme Court hearing — noting that Trump's first priority should be attending his trial — he kicked the question of Barron's graduation down the line, saying that he has no issue with the nature of the request but needs to see how the trial unfolds before making a decision.

"Regarding counsel's request that the court adjourn on Friday, May 17th for Mr. Trump to attend his son's high school graduation and Friday, June 3rd to allow a member of the defense team to attend their son's graduation, I cannot rule on those two requests at this time," Merchan said.

"It really depends on how we are doing on time and where we are in the trial," he continued. "If everything is going according to schedule without unnecessary delays, then I am sure we will be able to adjourn for one or both of those days, but if we are running behind schedule, we will not be able to."

Related: Ari Melber Previews What's at Stake in Donald Trump's Hush Money Trial — and How He'll Defend Himself (Exclusive)

Barron, who turned 18 in March, has been attending a private academy in Florida and is reportedly considering his post-graduation options with the help of his mom, former first lady Melania Trump.

The former president, meanwhile, has his hands tied as he runs a presidential campaign and anticipates being in court four days a week for the next couple of months while a New York jury weighs 34 felony charges of falsified business records.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is leading the case against Trump, where he is expected to argue that Trump's alleged crimes went beyond simple white-collar mischief, and were part of a larger scheme to unlawfully tip the 2016 presidential election in his favor.

In Trump's indictment — which made him the first U.S. president to face criminal charges last spring — he is accused of falsely documenting hush money payments to Stormy Daniels in his financial records. Bragg claims that Trump did so in order to conceal other attempts to defraud voters in the final days of the election.

Though the case has been widely nicknamed Trump's "hush money case," the allegations run deeper and come with the threat of prison time if he's convicted.

Right now, the court is whittling down a pool of several hundred potential jurors with the goal of impaneling 12 impartial people who can be trusted to fairly decide Trump's fate. The process could take up to two weeks, and is the last step before opening arguments begin.

For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!

Read the original article on People.