NEW YORK (AP) – The judge in donald trumpin silence money criminal case on Friday rejected the former president’s request to postpone his trial due to publicity surrounding the case.
It’s the latest in a series of delay denials Trump has won from multiple courts this week as he fights to avoid the Trial begins Monday with jury selection.
Among other things, Trump’s lawyers argued that the jury was inundated with what the defense considered “exceptionally damaging” news coverage of the case. The defense argued that this was a reason to postpone the case indefinitely.
Judge Juan M. Merchan said the idea was “not tenable.”
Trump “seems to take the position that his situation and this case are unique and that pretrial publicity will never abate. However, this vision does not align with reality,” the judge wrote.
He said questioning potential jurors would resolve any concerns about their ability to be fair and impartial.
Prosecutors opposed Trump’s request, saying the publicity was unlikely to subside and that Trump’s comments themselves generated too much publicity. Prosecutors also noted that there are more than 1 million people in Manhattan and said the jury’s questioning could certainly locate 12 people who could be impartial.
Trump’s lawyers made other, sometimes similar, arguments for delays in an appeals court this week. All were rejected by individual appeals judges, although the matters are referred to a panel of appeals judges for further consideration.
Trump’s secret money case is the first of his four criminal charges set to go to trial and it would be the first criminal trial of a former president.
Trump is accused of tampering with his company’s records to hide the true reason for the payments to his former lawyer and dealmaker Michael Cohen, who helped the candidate bury negative allegations about him during his 2016 campaign. porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 to suppress her story of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump years earlier, which Trump denies.
Trump declared himself innocent last year for 34 criminal charges of falsifying business records. His lawyers argue that the payments to Cohen were legitimate legal expenses.
