Former President Donald Trump recently got a legal saving in his civil fraud trial as another New York judge ruled that he will stand trial in the criminal hush-money case involving Stormy Daniels on April 15 via Mediaite.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s case against Trump for allegedly paying an adult film star to keep quiet about a sexual encounter they had shortly after his youngest son was born will not be postponed, according to a ruling by Judge Juan Merchan on Monday. This trial is going to be the first criminal trial of a former president.
Trump’s legal team attempted to postpone the trial by claiming that Bragg’s office had engaged in improper prosecution practices and citing fresh documents that needed to be examined. Before rendering his decision, Merchan reportedly expressed skepticism and even criticized Trump’s lawyer, former federal prosecutor Todd Blanche, for what seemed to be a delay tactic:
You were there 13 years, so you know that the defense has the same ability as the prosecution to obtain these documents. …You could have very easily done exactly what you did in January but for whatever reason you waited until two months before trial.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to hide the affair while he was running for president in 2016. He had pleaded not guilty.
