A New York appeals court judge on Monday rejected Donald Trump’s request to delay his hush-money criminal trial, which is scheduled for April 15. The development came in just a week before the jury selection was slated to begin, The Guardian reported on Tuesday. At an emergency hearing, Trump’s lawyers had argued that the trial should be delayed as they wished to change the venue and move the case out of Manhattan, which is heavily Democratic.
The order was issued by Associate Justice Lizbeth Gonzalez after a half-hour hearing at the Appellate Division in Manhattan, Reuters reported.
In another attempt by Trump to delay the legal proceedings pending against him, the former president, on Monday, Trump was ready to sue the judge in his New York hush-money case, the report noted citing the New York Times.
The postponement request was aimed at delaying the trial and challenging a gang order that was imposed by the judge, the report stated citing two unnamed sources informed on the matter and court records indicating the filing of sealed documents.
“Mr Trump’s unorthodox move – essentially an appeal in the form of a lawsuit – is unlikely to succeed, particularly so close to trial,” the paper stated.
Donald Trump, who is facing 34 criminal charges in connection with the hush-money payments to an adult film star, Stormy Daniels, who claimed to have an affair with the former President, has pleaded not guilty.
He has also been attacking Juan Merchan, the judge in the case, and members of his family, alleging political bias.
The trial, which will be the first-ever criminal trial involving Trump, is scheduled for Manhattan next Monday.
According to the report, Trump was also expected to ask an appeals court to move the trial out of Manhattan. The city was his home borough before he was elected as a President, after which he moved to Florida. This gambit was also predicted to likely fail.
“Trump’s latest desperate move of personally suing Merchan in the appellate division is reminiscent of his initial gambit in Palm Beach [Florida], where judge [Aileen] Cannon permitted him to take the whole action off track [in his classified information case]. But it won’t happen here. Imagine if a criminal defendant could do this,” the report quoted a US attorney turned law professor and commentator Harry Litman as saying.
Apart from the hush-money trial, Trump is also facing 54 other criminal charges: 40 in Florida, over his retention of classified information after leaving office and 14 for his attempt to overturn the 2020 election. Additionally, he is facing 10 other charges in Georgia and four in Washington DC.
The former US president is also facing multimillion-dollar penalties in two civil matters, which are both filed in New York. While one is related to tax fraud, the other one is for defamation, which arose from a rape allegation, called “substantially true” by a judge.
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