NEW YORK — Donald Trump’s hush-money trial will go ahead as scheduled with jury selection starting on March 25, a New York judge ruled Thursday, turning aside demands for a delay from the former president’s defense lawyers.
The decision means that the first of Trump's four criminal prosecutions to proceed to trial is a case centered on years-old accusations that he sought to bury stories about extramarital affairs that arose during his 2016 presidential campaign. Other cases charge him with plotting to overturn the results of the 2020 election and illegally hoarding classified documents at his Florida estate.
In leaving the trial date intact, Judge Juan Manuel Merchan noted a delay in the separate prosecution in Washington related to efforts to undo the election. That case, originally set for trial on March 4, has been effectively frozen pending the outcome of Trump's appeal on the legally untested question of whether a former president enjoys immunity from prosecution for actions taken in the White House.
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Manhattan criminal court, Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024, in New York. Trump is expected to be back in a New York court Thursday for a hearing that could decide whether the former president's first criminal trial begins in just 39 days. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
Noting that he had resisted defense lawyer urgings from months ago to postpone the trial, Merchan said: “I’m glad I took that position because here we are — the D.C. case did not go forward.”
The hush money trial is expected to last six weeks, the judge said.
Assuming the New York case remains on schedule, it will open just weeks after the Super Tuesday elections, colliding on the political calendar with a time period in which Trump will be looking to mathematically sew up the Republican race and emerge as the presumptive nominee in this year’s presidential contest. His attorneys cited that schedule in vigorously objecting to the March trial date.
“It is completely election interference to say ‘you are going to sit in this courtroom in Manhattan,’ when there is no reason, said defense lawyer Todd Blanche. “What about his rights?"
Merchan held firm, telling Blanche that he had already considered — and rejected — his position, at one point snapping at the lawyer to “Stop interrupting me, please!”
Speaking to reporters in a courthouse hallway, Trump made a similar case.
“We want delays. Obviously I’m running for election. How can you run for election if you’re sitting in a courthouse in Manhattan all day long? I’m supposed to be in South Carolina now," said Trump, the GOP front-runner to face President Joe Biden in November.
In fact, Trump has repeatedly attended court proceedings where his presence was not required.
Thursday marked Trump’s first return visit to court in the New York case since that historic indictment made him the first ex-president charged with a crime. Since then, he has also been indicted in Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.
The hearing was held amid a busy overlapping stretch of legal activity for the Republican presidential front-runner, who has increasingly made his court involvement part of his political campaign. On Monday, for instance, he voluntarily attended a closed hearing in a Florida case charging him with hoarding classified records.
A separate hearing was unfolding in Atlanta on Thursday as a judge considered arguments on whether to toss Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis off of the state’s election interference case because of a personal relationship with a special prosecutor she hired.
The New York case has long been considered the least legally perilous of the four indictments filed against Trump last year, with the alleged misconduct — generally known to the public for years — seen by many as less grave than accusations of mishandling classified documents or plotting to subvert a presidential election.
The Washington case charging him with election interference was officially delayed last month, with the Supreme Court now weighing the immunity question. There’s no new date. The classified documents case in Florida is set for trial on May 20, but that date could be moved. No trial date is scheduled in the Atlanta case.
Over the past year, Trump has lashed out at Merchan as a “Trump-hating judge,” asked him to step down from the case and sought to move the case from state court to federal court, all to no avail. Merchan has acknowledged making several small donations to Democrats, including $15 to Trump’s rival Biden, but said he’s certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”
Trump is also awaiting a decision, possibly as early as Friday, in a New York civil fraud case that threatens to upend his real estate empire. If the judge rules against Trump, who is accused of inflating his wealth to defraud banks, insurers and others, he could be on the hook for millions of dollars in penalties among other sanctions.
Along with clarifying the trial schedule, Merchan also rejected a request by Trump’s lawyers to throw out the case.
Trump’s lawyers accuse Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of bringing the case to interfere with Trump’s chances of retaking the White House. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., declined to pursue a case on the same allegations.
The charges are punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in prison time.
The case centers on payoffs to two women, porn actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about Trump having a child out of wedlock. Trump says he didn’t have any of the alleged sexual encounters.
Trump’s lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 and arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid to pay McDougal $150,000 in a practice known as “catch-and-kill.”
Trump’s company then paid Cohen $420,000 and logged the payments as legal expenses, not reimbursements, prosecutors said. Bragg charged Trump last year with falsifying internal records kept by his company, the Trump Organization, to hide the true nature of payments.
Trump’s legal team has argued that no crime was committed.
___
Who’s running for president? See the latest rundown of major 2024 candidates
Donald Trump
The former president announced his third campaign for the White House on Nov. 15, 2022, at his Mar-a-Lago resort, forcing the party to decide whether to embrace a candidate whose refusal to accept defeat in 2020 sparked the U.S. Capitol attack and still dominates his speeches.
The GOP front-runner remains hugely popular in the Republican Party, despite making history as the first president to be impeached twice and inciting the Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Referring to himself as America's “most pro-life president," Trump nominated three conservative judges to the Supreme Court, paving the way for the reversal of Roe v. Wade, which had legalized abortion nationwide for nearly 50 years. Sweeping criminal justice reforms he signed into law in 2019 eased mandatory minimum sentences and gave judges more discretion in sentencing.
In March, Trump became the first former U.S. president to be criminally charged, facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records as part of a hush-money scheme. Since then, he has been charged with 57 more felonies in three other criminal cases, accused of mishandling and unlawfully retaining classified documents and trying to illegally overturn the results of the 2020 election.
His overwhelming win in the lead-off Iowa caucuses signaled his dominant position in the race for the GOP nomination.
Joe Biden
Updated
President Joe Biden formally announced his reelection campaign on April 25 in a video, asking voters for time to “finish this job."
Biden, the oldest president in American history, would be 86 at the end of a second term, and his age has prompted some of his critics to question whether he can serve effectively. A notable number of Democratic voters indicated they would prefer he not run, though he is expected to easily win the Democratic nomination.
Biden, who has vowed to “restore the soul of America,” plans to run on his record. He spent his first two years as president combating the coronavirus pandemic and pushing through major bills such as the bipartisan infrastructure package and legislation to promote high-tech manufacturing and climate measures.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Updated
The bestselling author and environmental lawyer announced on Oct. 9 that he was ending his Democratic presidential bid and instead launching an independent run.
A nephew of President John F. Kennedy and son of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, he initially launched a long-shot bid to challenge Biden for the Democratic nomination on April 19 in Boston. He said in announcing his party switch that he intended to be a spoiler candidate for both Biden and Trump.
Kennedy has emerged as one of the leading voices of the anti-vaccine movement, with public health experts and even members of his own family describing his work as misleading and dangerous. He has also been linked to far-right figures in recent years.
Jill Stein
Updated
The environmental activist, whose 2016 third-party presidential bid was blamed by Democrats for helping Trump win the White House, says she is making another run for the nation's highest office.
Jill Stein announced Nov. 9 that she will again run under the Green Party banner. "I'm running for president to offer that choice for the people outside of the failed two-party system,” she said.
She ran against Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 as a Green Party candidate and received about 1% of the vote. Some Democrats said her candidacy siphoned votes away from Clinton, particularly in swing states like Wisconsin.
Cornel West
Updated
The progressive activist and scholar announced Oct. 5 that he was ending his bid for the presidency under the Green Party banner and was instead running as an independent.
West wrote on X that he was running as an independent to “end the iron grip of the ruling class and ensure true democracy!” He added, "We need to break the grip of the duopoly and give power to the people.”
He initially announced in June that he would be running as a member of The People’s Party before soon switching to the Green Party.
Who’s dropped out?
Updated
Republicans:
- Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis
- Former Vice President Mike Pence
- Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina
- Former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie
- Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy
- Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson
- North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum
- Radio show host Larry Elder
- Businessman Perry Johnson
- Former U.S. Rep. Will Hurd of Texas
- Miami Mayor Francis Suarez
Democrats:
- U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota
- Self-help author and spiritual guru Marianne Williamson
