Donald Trump’s New York hush money case – the only one of his four criminal cases that looked like it would go to trial soon – suddenly faced the threat of a delay on Thursday when a large amount of potential new evidence suddenly became available.
News of the likely postponement came as the former president sat in federal court in Florida for a separate hearing in a separate case – the one in which he is accused of misusing classified documents, for which there is no set start date yet. The judge there rejected one of Mr. Trump’s numerous requests to dismiss the case.
On Friday, a judge in Georgia is expected to decide in another of the four cases whether to disqualify the district attorney who has accused Mr. Trump and a group of his allies of manipulating that state’s election results in 2020 – a decision that possible could be crucial to whether the case goes to trial this year or at all.
And in Washington, prosecutors and lawyers for Mr. Trump are preparing for a showdown before the Supreme Court, which will hear arguments next month on his claim that he is immune from charges in the federal indictment that accuses him of conspiring to overturn his election defeat to have planned for 2020. This case was originally scheduled to go before a jury this month.
The latest complications highlight how the justice system is struggling to balance fairness and speed against the backdrop of a presidential campaign-driven calendar. All four cases in recent weeks have, in one way or another, become further mired in procedural or substantive issues that have led to delays.
The question of timing is paramount in the Trump prosecutions. Mr. Trump is, after all, a unique defendant.
He won enough delegates this week to ensure he will be the Republican nominee for a third straight election, and if he wins in November he would be able to use the powers of his office to challenge the charges he is facing, postpone any legal proceedings until after he leaves office.
And if he doesn’t go to trial on some or all four cases before voters go to the polls, Americans will elect their next leader without having a chance to hear all the evidence or have a jury determine his innocence or guilt.
The hush money case, which was scheduled to begin March 25, is just the latest case to face a delay. Thursday’s surprise development came after the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is handling the prosecution, proposed a delay of up to 30 days to allow the Trump team to review a new batch of files.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office tried to obtain the records from federal prosecutors in Manhattan from a separate investigation they conducted several years ago into the hush money payments, but only recently received them.
Mr. Trump, who has used all sorts of tactics to delay his trial, requested a 90-day deadline to review what appeared to be tens of thousands of pages of new material. It is now up to the judge in the case, acting state Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, to decide what to do. However, the fact that both sides in the case agree that there should be a delay means that it almost certainly will.
Judge Merchan could give both sides what they want or set a delay period somewhere between their requests. In any case, that would mean the trial would begin at least a month after the original date – potentially having a cascading effect on the timing of the other trials in the heat of a presidential campaign unlike any other.
Any trial against Trump could last past Election Day until his inauguration — and possibly beyond. If Mr. Trump wins the election, he would have the power on Jan. 20, 2025, to order his new attorney general to dismiss all federal charges against him and could seek to delay the continuation of federal charges in some cases in a variety of ways. But none of this would happen automatically. It would require him or his lawyers to take action, and it could take a while for those actions to result in the cases falling through.
Where is the respective criminal case?
Mr. Trump is the focus of at least four separate state and federal criminal investigations into matters related to his business and political career. Here is the current status of each case.
What to watch next
Judge Aileen Cannon of the U.S. District Court for South Florida has not yet decided when she will begin the confidential documents trial. The judge held a hearing two weeks ago to set a start date, but she has not yet announced her decision.
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2024-03-15 01:01:38
www.nytimes.com