By MICHAEL R. SISAK (Associated Press)
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump’s attempt to postpone his April 15 hush money criminal trial was turned down by a judge on Wednesday. hush money criminal trial until the Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity claims he raised in another of his criminal cases — spurning another of the former president’s ploys to put off the historic trial. Several more are pending.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan declared the request untimely, ruling that Trump’s lawyers had “myriad opportunities” to raise the immunity issue before they finally did so last month, well after a deadline for pretrial motions had already passed.
The timing of the defense’s March 7 filing “raises real questions about the sincerity and actual purpose of the motion,” Merchan wrote in a six-page decision.
Lawyers for Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, had asked Merchan to adjourn the New York trial indefinitely until Trump’s immunity claim in his Washington, D.C., election interference case is resolved.
Trump claims he is immune from prosecution for conduct alleged to involve official acts during his time in office. His lawyers have not raised that as a defense in the hush-money case, but they argued that some evidence — including Trump’s social media posts about former lawyer Michael Cohen — is from his time as president and should be excluded from the trial because of his immunity protections.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments on April 25 — a week-and-a-half after the start of jury selection in the hush-money case.
Trump lawyer Todd Blanche declined to comment. The Manhattan district attorney’s office also declined to comment.
Trump first raised the immunity issue in his Washington criminal case, which involves allegations that he worked to overturn the results of his 2020 election loss in the run-up to the violent riot by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Merchan, in his ruling, drew a distinction between the Washington case — which he referred to as the Federal Insurrection Matter — and the hush-money case he’s overseeing.
In Washington, Trump is trying to use presidential immunity to get the charges thrown out on the grounds that he has “absolute immunity from federal criminal liability,” the judge wrote. In the hush-money case, he said, Trump is trying to preclude evidence of what prosecutors said was his “pressure campaign” against Cohen and other witnesses.
The hush money case centers on allegations that Trump falsified his company’s internal records to hide the true nature of payments to his former lawyer Michael Cohen, who helped Trump bury negative stories during his 2016 presidential campaign. Among other things, Cohen paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 to suppress her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. He has denied having a sexual encounter with Daniels, and his lawyers argue the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses and not part of any cover-up.
The trial for hush-money, which is the first of Trump’s four criminal cases set to go before a jury, was initially set to start on March 25. Merchan delayed it to April 15 after Trump’s lawyers complained about a sudden release of documents from a prior federal investigation into the matter that led Cohen to prison.
Trump and his lawyers have continued to push for more delays, expressing concerns about getting a fair trial in heavily Democratic Manhattan and asking for more time. It’s the latest version of the strategy Trump announced to TV cameras outside a pretrial hearing in February: “We want delays.”
Trump’s lawyers are again asking Merchan to step aside from the case, arguing that he may have a conflict of interest because of his daughter’s work as a Democratic political consultant. Merchan rejected a similar recusal request last year. If he were to step down now, it would disrupt the trial schedule as a new judge would need to be assigned and brought up to speed.
In recent filings, Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial should be delayed indefinitely until the media coverage of the case lessens. They also argue that the prosecutors in the liberal borough are trying to make the case about the 2016 election and give jurors a chance to vote on Trump’s win in that race.
Prosecutors disagreed with that on Wednesday, stating that the publicity about the unprecedented trial of the former president is likely to continue. They blamed Trump’s continuous rhetoric for generating significant publicity and stated that it would be unfair to reward him with a delay based on media attention he actively seeks.
Prosecutors said the jury selection process — with additional questions designed to eliminate biased prospects — will allow both sides to pick a fair jury.
In his ruling on Wednesday, Merchan wrote that Trump’s failure to raise the immunity issue sooner was hard to believe since the former president’s lawyers had previously mentioned presidential immunity in a failed attempt last year to move the hush-money case from state court to federal court.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected Trump’s claim that allegations in the hush money indictment involved official duties, writing last July, “The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was a purely a personal item of the President — a cover-up of an embarrassing event.”
“Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a President’s official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the President’s official duties,” Hellerstein added.
The question of whether a former president is immune from federal prosecution for official acts taken in office is legally untested.
Prosecutors in the Washington case have said no such immunity exists and that, in any event, none of the actions alleged in the indictment count as official acts. The trial judge in Washington and a federal appeals court have both ruled against Trump.
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