Former US President Donald Trump speaks after attending a memorial service for New York City Police Department (NYPD) officer Jonathan Diller, who was killed during a routine traffic stop in the Far Rockaway neighborhood of Queens in Massapequa Park on March 25 , New York, USA, March 28, 2024.
Shannon Stapleton | Reuters
A judge on Wednesday rejected former President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to postpone his hush money trial, which was scheduled to begin April 15 in New York.
Trump had asked Judge Juan Merchan to delay the trial until the U.S. Supreme Court rules in a separate criminal case in federal court in Washington, D.C., over where he enjoys presidential immunity related to his efforts to win the election by President Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
Merchan rejected that request, saying Trump had “countless opportunities” to argue that he was immune in the hush money case before March 7, when his lawyers first made the claim.
“Defendant’s motion is DENIED as untimely,” Merchan wrote in his decision.
The judge also wrote that he declined to consider whether the doctrine of presidential immunity precludes prosecutors from presenting evidence at trial of alleged official actions by the president.
Those actions include statements Trump made on social media and in interviews with potential witnesses in the case while he was president from 2017 to early 2021.
Trump is accused in the Manhattan Supreme Court case of falsifying business records related to a hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. He pleaded not guilty to several charges.
Trump’s then-lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in exchange for her silence about an alleged one-time sexual tryst with Trump a decade earlier, to prevent her from harming his chances of winning the White House.
Trump denies having sex with Daniels.
In his ruling, Merchan wrote that Trump’s lawyers “cannot explain why the defendant waited well beyond the statutory 45-day deadline before trial to file a pretrial motion for a delay.”
The trial was scheduled to begin March 25 but was postponed by Merchan.
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2024-04-03 21:15:46
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