Former President Donald Trump, center, returns for a pre-trial hearing after a recess at Manhattan criminal court, on March 25, in New York.Mary Altaffer/The Associated Press
Donald Trump’s trial over a hush-money payment to a porn star will start April 15, a New York judge ruled Monday, putting the first criminal prosecution of a former U.S. president on track to unfold before this year’s election.
In a Manhattan courtroom, Justice Juan Merchan rejected a bid by Mr. Trump to further delay the case, making it the first of his four indictments to go to trial.
In a separate civil fraud case on Monday, Mr. Trump received a partial reprieve. An appeals court reduced his bond from US$454-million to US$175-million and gave him 10 more days to post it, forestalling efforts by New York State’s Attorney-General to seize his assets.
Mr. Trump’s legal entanglements are coming to a head as his bid to reclaim the White House kicks into high gear. In addition to the hush-money case, he is also charged criminally in two prosecutions related to efforts to overturn the 2020 election and one over classified documents. On the civil side, he is appealing judgments against him over business fraud, sexual abuse and defamation.
The former president’s legal strategy has largely entailed trying to stall his court battles until after November’s rematch with President Joe Biden. If he gets back into office, Mr. Trump is expected to try to get the prosecutions stopped.
Justice Merchan on Monday in state court turned down Mr. Trump’s request that he either throw out the hush-money case or grant a 90-day delay. The 34-count indictment accuses Mr. Trump of falsifying business records to cover up a US$130,000 payment to pornographic movie actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election to stop her from revealing an extramarital affair she says Mr. Trump had with her.
Todd Blanche, one of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, argued that he needed more time to review recently disclosed documents from a federal investigation into the incident. But Justice Merchan dismissed Mr. Blanche’s claim that the prosecution was to blame for the late disclosure, implying it was Mr. Blanche’s fault for waiting so long to subpoena the documents.
“That you don’t have a case right now is really disconcerting,” Justice Merchan scolded Mr. Blanche at one point. “You’re accusing the Manhattan district attorney’s office and the people involved in this case of prosecutorial misconduct and of trying to make me complicit in it. And you don’t have a single cite to support that position.”
Mr. Blanche contended that “every document is important,” but struggled to answer a question from the judge about how many papers in the disclosure were relevant to the case. Mr. Trump attended the hearing in person, as he has with most of his legal proceedings.
Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo said the relevant documents numbered about 300, representing just 1 per cent of the papers disclosed by the federal government. District Attorney Alvin Bragg had already agreed to delay the trial, which had been set to start Monday, while the documents issue was sorted out.
The proceedings on April 15 will start with jury selection.
In a subsequent press conference at 40 Wall Street, an office building managed by his company, Mr. Trump said he would appeal the ruling. He baselessly claimed that “Biden and his thugs” were behind the “ridiculous” cases against him. The criminal charges were brought by state-level prosecutors and a federal independent counsel, none of whom take orders from Mr. Biden.
The hush-money case was the first to be indicted, nearly a year ago, and is the most minor of Mr. Trump’s criminal travails. It turns on a payment Mr. Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen, made to Ms. Daniels in 2016. When Mr. Trump’s business paid him back, the payments were logged as legal expenses. Mr. Bragg contends the payment constituted an undeclared campaign expense, a violation of election law that would make the falsification of documents felonies rather than misdemeanours.
Mr. Cohen pleaded guilty to federal charges in 2018, served time in prison and has co-operated with prosecutors. Mr. Trump was never charged federally over the incident but Mr. Bragg, who was elected in 2021, decided to take it up at the state level.
In the fraud case in state court, Justice Arthur Engoron found Mr. Trump’s family business liable for US$484-million for ripping off banks by inflating the value of its assets. Justice Engoron gave Mr. Trump until Monday to post bond in that amount while he appealed.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers said he could not find anyone willing to finance such a large sum. Attorney-General Letitia James warned that, in lieu, she would start the process of freezing Mr. Trump’s accounts and taking control of his properties.
On Monday, however, a five-judge appeals panel drastically cut the amount and gave Mr. Trump more time to find the funds.
Trial dates in Mr. Trump’s other criminal cases are all up in the air. The federal election case, brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, is on hold pending a Supreme Court appeal by Mr. Trump, who contends former presidents should be immune from prosecution. The Trump-appointed judge in the classified documents case, Aileen Cannon, has not set a trial date. The state-level election case in Georgia involves numerous co-defendants and is still working through pretrial motions.
With a report from the Associated Press