Former President Donald Trump arrives at the courtroom for his civil business fraud trial at New York Supreme Court, Wednesday, Oct. 25, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
In short order from the bench on Thursday, New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan denied Donald Trump‘s motion to dismiss his criminal indictment for allegedly falsifying records while making hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
From the courtroom in Manhattan, Just Security reported that Merchan was firm when he told the former president that the trial date would not move.
The New York trial date was “certain” he added, and that had been forecast for weeks as Law&Crime previously reported.
“You don’t have a trial date in Georgia. You don’t have a trial date in Florida,” Merchan said, referring to two other jurisdictions where the ex-president is facing criminal charges, before reportedly snapping at one of Trump’s lawyers for interrupting him.
This trial will mark the first time a former U.S. president has been criminally prosecuted.
The New York Times reported Thursday that Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche balked at the order, saying it was “unfathomable” that the presumptive nominee for the Republican Party in the 2024 presidential race would be ready to balance his legal obligations with his campaigning.
The trial is expected to take six weeks and jury selection would begin March 25.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg brought the case last year alleging that while Trump was campaigning for the presidency in 2016, he approved a sizeable $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to keep a tryst he had with her secret. The rub, according to prosecutors, is that Trump falsified business records to shield the payment as he vied for office.
Onetime Trump-darling and fixer Michael Cohen is expected to be a witness against Trump since he made the payments to Daniels allegedly on Trump’s behalf. Notably, when Cohen testified at Trump’s civil fraud trial in Manhattan last year he reneged on his previous statements that Trump told him outright to inflate his real estate valuations.
Cohen said instead that the sentiment was implied.
“He tells you what he wants without specifically telling you. We understood what he wanted,” Cohen said.
After Merchan’s ruling in the courtroom Thursday, Trump’s attorneys immediately moved to lodging objections over the shape of a juror questionnaire, including, according to the Times, objections over whether prospective jurors can be asked if they think the 2020 election was stolen.
That long-debunked theory has been thoroughly consistently rejected by courts nationwide.
Prosecutor Joshua Steinglass argued that jurors who would still believe the election was stolen might also be unable or unwilling to follow the facts of the case or follow court-ordered instructions.
Trump’s civil fraud trial as well as the recent E. Jean Carroll defamation case in New York were also raised by Blanche as potential cause for concern over the trial date as well as jury selection but Merchan rejected the notion and curtly told the lawyer: “Thank you, Mr. Blanche. Mr. Blanche, please have a seat,” according to CNN.
Inside the courtroom, the outlet also reported that defense attorneys objected to juror questions over membership in extremist groups like the Proud Boys or Oath Keepers. Leaders of both groups were convicted of seditious conspiracy last year after jurors heard evidence for months about attempts to forcibly stop the transfer of power to President Joe Biden.
When Blanche also raised objections to screening jurors by asking whether they were adherents to the conspiracy-theory addled QAnon movement, prosecutors reportedly quipped that if Trump objected to that, they could add “Antifa” to the list, too.
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