Trump’s Upcoming New York Criminal Trial May Be Pushed Back
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has agreed to a 30-day delay on Trump’s upcoming hush money trial in New York.
In a Thursday filing, Bragg wrote that his office had received “approximately 31,000 pages of additional records” from the US Attorney’s Office (USAO) and would “not oppose a brief adjournment of up to 30 days to permit sufficient time for defendant to review the USAO productions.”
Trump was indicted in March of last year on 34 felony charges related to the former president’s hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election. The trial was originally scheduled to begin on March 25.
Bragg seemed to be ready to move forward with the historic prosecution of a former president. Last month, the DA requested that the court impose a gag order on Trump preventing him from speaking out against witnesses, investigators, jury members, and others involved in the criminal proceedings.
Prosecutors noted that the former president has a long track record publicly attacking his perceived enemies, and included a list of more than 80 documented threats against Bragg, members of his family, or other Manhattan officials since the former president’s indictment.
Trump — who is also facing multiple criminal cases outside of New York — has been working overtime to have the various prosecutions against him either delayed or thrown out. On Thursday, a federal judge in Florida heard arguments in the former president’s bid to have the Justice Department’s classified documents case dismissed on grounds that his alleged mishandling of state secrets was protected under the Presidential Records Act.
In September, the former president claimed that he’s “allowed to do whatever” he wants during an interview with conservative radio personality Hugh Hewitt. The attitude of unchecked authority is what has guided the bulk of Trump’s legal arguments in the criminal cases against him. In January, his attorneys argued before D.C.’s Court of Appeals that the president should have virtually blanket immunity from prosecution over crimes committed while in office. They even went so far as to lay out that — under their interpretation of the law — a president could only be tried for ordering the assassination of a political opponent if he was first impeached by Congress.
Trump plans to blame his lawyers in the hush money case. In a court filing released earlier this week, Trump’s current attorneys wrote that “President Trump intends to elicit evidence concerning the presence, involvement and advice of lawyers in relevant events giving rise to the charges in the Indictment.”
Given that many of the lawyers and sycophants Trump surrounded himself with during his presidency have also ended up as defendants in criminal cases, it’s likely that such a strategy will result in plenty of finger-pointing between the former president and his former allies.
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