A New ꦕYork judge has scheduled an April 15 trial date in former President Donald Trump's hush money case.
Judge Juan M. Merchan made the ruling Monday. The judge earlier had scolded the former president's lawyers as he weighed when to reschedule the trial after a last-minute document dump caused a p𒀰ostponement of the original date.
Merchan had bristled at what he suggested were baseless defense claims of “prosecutorial miscond𒐪uct,” appearing unpersuaded by Trump team arguments that prosecutors had until recently concealed tens of thousands of pages of records f🅷rom a previous federal investigation.
Prosecutors say only a handful of those newly records is relevant to the 🐽case, while defense lawyers contend that thousands of pages are potentially important and require a painstaking review. Merchan, who earlier this month postponed the trial until at least mid-April, told defense lawyers that they should have acted much sooner if they believed they didn't have all the records they felt they were entitled to.
“That you don't have a case right now is really disconcerting because the allegation that the defense makes in all of your papers is incredibly serious. Unbelievably serious,” Merchan said. “You're accusing the Manha🌳ttan district attorney's office and the people involved in this case of prosecutor♑ial misconduct and of trying to make me complicit in it. And you don't have a single cite to support that position.”
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee arrived in court for a hearing scheduled in place of the🉐 long-planned start of jury selection in the first of his four criminal cases to go to trial. It took place on a uniquely consequential day for Trump and his legal and political affairs as, besides a likely determination of a trial date, a New York appeals court on Monday granted him a dose of good news by agreeing to hold off 💙collection of his $454 million civil fraud judgment - if he puts up $175 million within 10 days.
The hush money case, filed last year by prosecutors in Manhattan, has taken on added importance given that it's the only one of the prosecutions against Trump that appears likely for trial in the coming months. The simmering docume𝓀nts dispute - arising from a tranche of records relating to a 2018 federal investigation into the same issues - is significant to the extent it results in a meaningful delay to the trial, which centers on years-old allegations that Trump arranged a payment to a porn actor during his 2016 presidential campaign to suppress claims of an extramarital affair.
The district attorney's office said there was little new material in the trove and no reason for further delay, with pr🎉osecutor Matthew Colangelo saying in court Monday that the number o🌄f relevant, usable, new documents “is quite small” - around 300 records or fewer.
“We very much disagree,” countered defense lawyer Todd Blanche, who said the number totaled in the thousands and continues to grow. Trump's lawyers a🌠rgue that the delaye🅺d disclosures warrant dismissing the case or at least pushing it off three months.
“We're not 💮doing our jobs if we don't independently review the materials,” Blanche said. “Every document is important.”
But Merchan seemed unmoved, asking Blanche why the defense team, which subpoenaed for the records inཧ January, didn't bring๊ up concerns about potentially missing documents weeks earlier.
“Why did you wait until two 𓆉months b💧efore trial? Why didn't you do it in June or July,” Merchan said.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to charges that he falsified business records. Manhattan prosecutors say Trump did it as part of an effort to protect his 2016 campaign by burying what he says were false stories of extramarital sex. Trump on Monday repeated to reporters his claims that the case is 🎀a “witch hunt” and “hoax.” The prosecutor overseeing the case, Manhattan District Att💎orney Alvin Bragg, is a Democrat.
The case centers on allegations that Trump falsely logged $130,000 in payments as legal fees in his𝕴 company's books “to disguise his and others' criminal conduct,” as Bragg's deputies put it in a court document.
The money went to Trump's then-personal attorney Michael Cohen, but prosecutors say it wasn't for actual legal work. Rather, they say, Cohen was just recouping money he'd pai🔥d porn ac꧅tor Stormy Daniels on Trump's behalf, so she wouldn't publicize her claim of a sexual encounter with him years earlier.
Trump's lawyers say the payments to Cohen were legiti𒊎mate legal expenses, not cover-up checks.
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges, including campaign finance violations related to the Daniels payoff. He said Trump directed him to arrange it, and federal prosecutors indicated they believed him, but they never charged Trump with any crime related to the matter.
Cohen is now a key witness in M🧔anhꦉattan prosecutors' case against Trump.
Trump's lawyers have said Bragg's 🔯office, in June, gave them a smidgen of materials from the federal investigation into Cohen. Then they got over 100,000 p🍌ages more after subpoenaing federal prosecutors themselves in January. The defense argues that prosecutors should have pursued all the records but instead stuck their heads in the sand, hoping to keep information from Trump.
The material hasn't been made public. But Trump's lawyers said in a court filing that some of it is “exculpatory and favorable to the defense,” adding that there's infꩵormation that would have aided their own investigation and consequential legal filings earlier in the case.
Bragg's deputies have insisted they “engaged in good-faith and diligent efforts to obtain relevant information” from the federal probe. They argued in court filings that Trump's lawyers should have spoken up earlier if they believed those efforts weꦡre lacking.
Prosecutors maintain that, in any event, the vast majority of what ultimately came is irrelevant, duplicative or back🐻s up existing evidence about 🌠Cohen's well-known federal conviction. They acknowledged in a court filing that there was some relevant new material, including 172 pages of notes recording Cohen's meetings with the office of former special counsel Robert Mueller, who investigated Russia's 2016 election interference.
Prosecutors argued that their adversaries have enough time to work with the relevant material before a mid-April💯 trial date and are just raising a “red herring.”
Trump's lawyers also have sought to delay the trial until after the Supreme Court rules on his claims of presidential immunity in his election interference case in Washington. The high court is set to hear arguments April 25.
