Judge says jury selection in Donald Trump’s New York hush money trial will begin on March 25

Donald Trump arrived at a New York court on Thursday for a hearing that could decide within 39 days whether the former president’s first criminal trial will begin.

“There are a lot of changes,” Judge Juan Merchan was quoted as saying by AFP on Thursday as he rejected a request from Trump’s lawyers. The latter strongly opposed the request to postpone the trial, calling the timing “election interference.”

The hearing to set a March 25 hush-money trial date for Trump will be held in the same Manhattan courtroom where he pleaded not guilty last April to 34 counts of falsifying business records in an alleged plot to bury his time in office. Stories about extramarital affairs. 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump entered the courthouse around 9 a.m.

It was Trump’s first return to court in a New York criminal case since the historic indictment made him the first former president to be charged with a crime.

He has since also been indicted in Florida, Georgia and Washington, DC. He has combined campaigning with court appearances in recent weeks, appearing Monday for a closed hearing in a Florida case accusing him of hoarding confidential records.

Judge Juan Manuel Merchan has taken steps in recent weeks to prepare for the trial. If it goes as planned, it would be Trump’s first criminal case to go to trial.

Over the past year, Trump has lashed out at Murchin as a “Trump-hating judge,” asked him to withdraw from the case and tried to move the case from state to federal court, to no avail. Merchant admitted to making several small donations to Democrats, including a $15 donation to Trump’s rival Joe Biden, but said he was confident in his “ability to be fair and impartial.”

Thursday’s lawsuit is part of a busy, overlapping legal campaign by the Republican presidential front-runner, who has increasingly made court involvement as part of his political campaign.

The March 4 trial date in Trump’s Washington, D.C., election interference case was recently postponed, clearing a major obstacle for the New York case to begin on time.

Just as the New York hearing is about to begin, an Atlanta judge will hear on Thursday whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be found guilty of interrogating Nathan Wade. ) was removed from the debate over Trump’s Georgia election interference case due to his “personal relationship.” The prosecutor she hired for the case.

Trump is also awaiting a ruling in a New York civil fraud case that could upend his real estate empire, possibly as early as Friday. If a judge rules against Trump, he could face millions of dollars in fines and other sanctions as he is accused of exaggerating his wealth to defraud banks, insurance companies and others.

In addition to clarifying the trial schedule, Murchin is expected to rule on key pretrial issues, including a request by Trump’s lawyers to dismiss the case, which they decried in court documents as “a politically motivated package.” The allegation contains legal flaws.”

Trump’s lawyers, Todd Branch and Susan Necheles, accused Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of bringing the case to interfere with Trump’s chances of regaining the White House. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., declined to sue on the same charges.

The charges carry a maximum penalty of four years in prison, but there is no guarantee of jail time upon conviction.

The case focuses on collecting money from two women, porn actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougall, as well as a Trump Tower janitor who claimed to own Trump The story of having a child out of wedlock. Trump said he did not engage in any alleged sexual activity.

Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 and arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid to pay McDougal $150,000, a practice known as “catching” “.

Trump’s company then paid Cohen $420,000 and recorded the payment as legal expenses rather than reimbursement, prosecutors said.

Bragg last year accused Trump of falsifying internal records kept by his company, the Trump Organization, to hide the true nature of the payments.

Trump’s legal team argued no crime was committed.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from Yonhap News Agency-The Associated Press)