NEW YORK (AP) — A judge on Wednesday rejected donald trumpHis offer to delay April 15th hush money criminal trial It would block another attempt by the former president to delay the historic trial until the Supreme Court rules on claims of presidential immunity he filed in a separate criminal case. Several more are pending.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Marchan declared the request untimely, saying that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had “innumerable cases” to finally raise the issue of immunity last month, after the deadline for pretrial motions had already passed. The court ruled that there was an “opportunity to do so.”
The timing of the defense’s March 7 filing “raises real questions about the sincerity and actual purpose of the allegations,” Marchand wrote in his six-page ruling.
Lawyers for Trump, the presumptive Republican candidate, had asked Marchand to postpone the New York trial indefinitely until Trump’s immunity claims in the election interference case in Washington, D.C., are resolved.
President Trump has claimed immunity from prosecution for actions he allegedly committed while in office. His lawyers have not used the matter as a defense to the hush-money lawsuit, but some of the evidence (such as Trump’s social media posts about his former lawyer Michael Cohen) dates from his presidency, and Trump He argued that he should be excluded from the trial because of his criminal conduct. Immune protection.
The Supreme Court is Argument is scheduled for April 25th. —It has been a week and a half since jury selection in the hush money case began.
President Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, declined to comment. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office also declined comment.
Trump first raised the issue of immunity in the Washington criminal case, which involves allegations that he worked. to reverse the results On defeat heading into the 2020 election riot It was carried out by his supporters at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
In his ruling, Marchan distinguished between the Washington case, which he called a federal insurrection case, and the hush-money case he oversees.
In Washington, a judge wrote that Trump is trying to use presidential immunity to get the charges dropped, citing “absolute immunity from federal criminal liability.” He said Trump was trying to suppress evidence of what prosecutors said was a “pressure campaign” against Cohen and other witnesses in the hush-money case.
The hush-money lawsuit alleges that Trump falsified internal company records to hide payments to former lawyer Michael Cohen, who helped Trump cover up negative stories during the 2016 presidential campaign. The focus is on the suspicion that Among other things, Cohen paid porn actor Stormy Daniels $130,000 several years ago to suppress her claims about extramarital sexual encounters with Trump.
playing cards pleaded not guilty since last year 34 felonies Falsification of business records. He denies having a sexual relationship with Daniels, and Cohen’s lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen are legitimate legal fees and not part of a cover-up.
The hush money trial was the first of four criminal cases against Trump scheduled to go to juries and was originally scheduled to begin on March 25. Marchand postponed it to April 15 after Trump’s lawyers complained about last-minute document leaks from a prior federal investigation. involved in the matter that sent Cohen to prison.
Mr. Trump and his lawyers have been lobbying for a further delay, using their frustrations with Mr. Marchand and concerns about a fair trial in heavily Democratic Manhattan as the petition for an extension was filed in the 11th hour. It extends to. It’s the latest iteration of the “we want delay” strategy that Trump declared to television cameras outside a pretrial hearing in February.
Mr. Trump’s lawyers told Mr. Marchand in a letter to the judge this week that he had recused himself from the lawsuit, arguing that his daughter’s work as a political consultant for the Democratic Party posed a potential conflict of interest. I once again urge them to pull back. Marchand rejected a similar request for a recusal last year. If he were to leave the court now, it would disrupt the court’s schedule and require time for a new judge to be appointed and for that judge to become established.
In other recent filings, Trump’s lawyers argued that the trial should be postponed indefinitely until there is no longer any “prejudicial media coverage” of the case. The liberal district’s prosecutors also claim that by trying to build a case about the 2016 election, they are “attempting to give jurors a referendum” on Trump’s victory in that election. .
Prosecutors balked that Wednesday, arguing that the public reputation surrounding the former president’s unprecedented trial was “unlikely to recede” anytime soon. They blame President Trump’s “incessant rhetoric” for creating headlines and call it “evil” to reward him with delays “based on the media attention he actively seeks.” he added.
Prosecutors said the jury selection process – with additional questions added to eliminate biased perspectives – allows both sides to choose an unbiased jury.
Marchan said in Wednesday’s ruling that the former president’s lawyers had previously invoked presidential immunity in an unsuccessful bid last year to move the hush money case from state court to federal court. He said that the president’s failure to raise the issue of immunity early led to increased distrust.
U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected Trump’s request. The president asserted that his official duties were involved in the hush-money indictment, and said in July last year, “The evidence is overwhelming that this matter was purely personal to the president, and that it was a cover-up of embarrassing events.” It suggests that.”
“The hush money paid to adult film stars has nothing to do with the president’s official conduct. It does not reflect the color of the president’s official duties in any way,” Hellerstein added.
The question of whether former presidents are immune from federal prosecution for their official actions after taking office has not been legally tested.
Prosecutors in the Washington case said no such immunity exists and, in any case, none of the acts alleged in the indictment would count as official acts. A trial judge in Washington and a federal appeals court both ruled against Trump.
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Associated Press writer Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.
