For third straight day, Trump fails to persuade NY appeals court to halt upcoming hush money trial

NEW YORK — Donald Trump failed Wednesday — for the third day in a row — to persuade a New York appeals court to halt his hush money trial from beginning next week.

Associate Justice Ellen Gesmer denied the former president’s latest emergency appeal less than an hour after hearing from his legal team and lawyers for the Manhattan district attorney in a makeshift courtroom in the basement of the 1st Department appeals court in the Flatiron District, the only space available to hear the last-minute request.

Trump’s appeal lawyer, Emil Bove, had asked Gesmer to stop the trial from going ahead next Monday until the defense attempts to get Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan off the case, fights a ruling preventing Trump from invoking presidential immunity to object to certain exhibits and challenges the trial court judge’s filing requirements.

“It’s an incredibly important trial,” Bove said. “This can only be done once, and it must be done right.”

Merchan recently denied Trump’s motion to delay the trial until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on the presidential immunity claim he raised in his federal election subversion case, finding it was brought up far too long after the deadline. Trump’s lawyers say that if he succeeds, the high court ruling could slightly bear on the Manhattan case by potentially barring prosecutors from presenting certain tweets from his presidential account to the jury.

Steven Wu, an appellate lawyer at the DA’s office, said there was absolutely no legal basis for the maneuvers the defense was attempting on the eve of trial and called their underlying complaints “meritless.” He noted Trump’s lawyers, in their emergency request, were partly complaining about decisions issued as late as last year, “yet they are coming only today.”

Bove doubled down on the defense’s unfounded allegations that Merchan has a personal interest in the trial outcome “by virtue of his relationship” with his daughter, who works at a political firm that consults on campaigns for Democrats. A judicial ethics committee previously determined that the judge had no conflict.

A lawyer for the state court system, Lisa Evans, rejected Trump’s claims, telling Gesmer there was “absolutely no evidence that Judge Merchan stands to benefit from the outcome of this trial.”

Trump’s lawyers have unleashed a fusillade of filings asking the appeals court to stop the trial from going forward — with Wednesday’s request marking at least their 11th delay bid.

On Tuesday, the appeals court declined their emergency request to halt the trial while they fight a gag order preventing Trump from trashing trial participants.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felonies alleging he disguised reimbursement for a hush money scheme executed before the 2016 presidential election to bury potentially negative information from voters.

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