Former US President Donald Trump speaks on the 18th green during day three of the LIV Golf Invitational – Miami at Trump National Doral Miami on April 7, 2024 in Doral, Florida.
Megan Briggs | Getty Images
A New York appeals court judge on Monday rejected Donald Trump’s latest attempt to postpone his upcoming hush money trial while he sought to move the case to another court.
Judge Lizbeth Gonzalez rejected Trump’s request the same day his lawyers filed it and less than two hours after a hearing in which his lawyers argued that the former president could not get a fair jury in New York, NBC News reported .
Trump’s lawyers asked the state appeals court to change the venue and suspend a gag order that prevents Trump from speaking about likely witnesses or the judge’s family, a source with direct knowledge told NBC. Ahead of the trial in Manhattan Supreme Court, where jury selection is scheduled to begin next week, Trump has frequently targeted both groups.
Trump is accused of falsifying business records to conceal a payment to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 presidential election. According to Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, he has made at least eight other attempts to postpone the trial.
Monday’s appeal was filed using a legal mechanism that allows a person to directly challenge a court’s actions, NBC reported. This allows Trump to challenge the case before the trial has even begun.
At a hearing Monday afternoon, defense attorney Emil Bove asked appeals judge Lizbeth Gonzalez to postpone the hush money trial, according to NBC.
Bove claimed Trump could not receive a fair and impartial jury in New York because of the overwhelming publicity surrounding the case. The lawyer cited poll results showing that a majority of people in New York County believe Trump is guilty. He noted that these potential jurors have likely heard about a number of other allegations against Trump, who faces 91 criminal charges in four different courts.
Steven Wu, arguing for the prosecution, countered that the judge should reject Trump’s eleventh-hour request. News of Trump’s legal battles is being read around the world, and the jurors in Manhattan are not necessarily incapable of acting as fair and impartial jurors, Wu said, according to NBC.
Wu added that Trump, who regularly rails against the case on social media and during the campaign, was responsible for the media frenzy. He couldn’t create a media circus and then use that publicity to get a change of venue, Wu told Gonzalez.
Former US President Donald Trump sits in the courtroom with his lawyer Susan Necheles during a hearing in his criminal trial on allegations related to hush money payments to a porn star in New York City, USA, March 25, 2024.
Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters
Trump attorney Todd Blanche did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the appeal. Susan Necheles, another Trump lawyer, declined to comment.
The appeal was first reported shortly after Bragg asked Chief Judge Juan Mercan to reject Trump’s recent request to remove the judge.
Bragg called that offer a malicious attempt to delay the trial and circumvent a gag order that prohibits Trump from speaking about the judge’s daughter.
Trump’s “renewed” arguments for Merchan’s rejection are nothing new compared to an earlier attempt to find a new justice, Bragg wrote in a court filing.
Rather, Bragg argued that the current motion to dismiss is a “last-ditch effort” to delay the trial, which appears to be “obviously reverse-engineered” to justify Trump’s spate of new attacks on Merchan’s adult daughter.
It was “an attempt to end the gag order” and “contaminate the court” with attacks against the judge and his family, “as part of a baseless attempt to impugn the integrity of these proceedings,” Bragg wrote.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg speaks during a press conference to discuss his indictment of former President Donald Trump at Manhattan Federal Court in New York on April 4, 2023.
Angela Weiss | AFP | Getty Images
Trump’s lawyers argued in court filings Friday that Authentic Campaigns, the Democratic consulting firm where Merchan’s daughter works, could benefit from the hush money case by using it to raise money and spread an anti-Trump message.
“Personal political views may not be a basis for rejection. But profiting from promoting a political agenda that is hostile to President Trump and includes fundraising related to this case must be,” they wrote.
Bragg, in Monday’s filing, called it “pure speculation to assume that decisions of this court would have an impact on Authentic’s contracts or revenues.” Even if the company raised money outside of the trial, that would still not be sufficient basis for the judge’s rejection, Bragg added.
The filing came days after Merchan expanded a gag order against Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, to prohibit him from making statements about the judge’s family members that could prejudice the case. Merchan also amended the order to prohibit Trump from discussing Bragg’s family members.
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The stricter silencing order came after Trump sent out a barrage of social media posts targeting Merchan’s daughter Loren Merchan over her political work, claiming it was evidence of the judge’s bias.
Trump also accused Loren Merchan of controlling an X account that featured a photo showing Trump behind bars in prison cells. The New York court administration denied that the judge’s daughter had control of this account at the time the image was published.
Judge Merchan wrote in the order that people watching Trump’s attacks might conclude that their loved ones could come under fire if they became involved in the case. The situation represents “a direct attack on the rule of law itself,” he wrote.
The judge rejected Trump’s first motion to dismiss last summer, which also focused on the political activities of Loren Merchan.
Bragg argued Monday that Trump’s current recusal motion makes “identical” arguments, adding that the few points it contains that were not previously made are “completely without merit.”
The hush money case is expected to be the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial. The former president’s lawyers have repeatedly tried to stop or delay all of these proceedings as he campaigns to unseat incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden.
—CNBC’s Dan Mangan contributed to this report.
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2024-04-08 21:58:02
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