Former US President Donald Trump was in a New York court on Monday, hoping to postpone a criminal trial on charges he paid hush money to a porn star to hide it from voters in the run-up to the 2016 presidential election, which he unexpectedly won. The White House term is four years.
The case will be the first criminal trial of a U.S. president, one of four Trump has faced, but perhaps one before he faces President Joe Biden in the November election in a rematch of the 2020 race. The only case that started.
The hush-money case was originally scheduled to begin Monday, but Judge Juan Merchan postponed it until at least April 15 as thousands of pages of documents from a previous federal investigation into the hush-money case are turned over to prosecutors and Trump’s lawyer. Trump wants the case further delayed or even dismissed.
Trump has denied wrongdoing and said on his “Truth Social” platform, “No crime was committed. Our country is corrupt!”
He is accused of having his one-time political fixer and former lawyer Michael Cohen pay porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money to prevent her from going public in the run-up to the 2016 election. Talking about her alleged one-night tryst. Had contact with Trump a decade ago at a celebrity golf tournament. Trump has long denied the incident and the criminal charges.
But prosecutors allege he repaid Cohen the money and then illegally falsified his business records, claiming the payments to Cohen were for legal fees.
Cohen, who has betrayed his former boss, is expected to become a key witness for Trump. Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance charges and lying to Congress in the case. He spent a total of 13.5 months in prison and a year and a half at home.
Progress on Trump’s three other criminal cases has been slow. Two of the charges allege that he illegally conspired to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden, and another alleges that he illegally brought highly classified documents to his beachfront estate in Florida when he left office in early 2021. There is uncertainty about the election, and Trump may seek to fire them if he wins the November election. He denies all 91 charges in the four indictments.
In addition to appearing in court in the hush-money case, Trump faces a day of financial reckoning on Monday that could indicate he is not as flush with cash as he has led the American public to believe.
Trump faces a deadline to come up with $454 million in cash or bonds backed by collateral on his assets so he can appeal last month’s ruling that he made money for years by inflating the value of his holdings better terms of business transactions, thereby committing civil fraud. .
New York Attorney General Letitia James appears ready to begin the long process of seizing some of Trump’s assets if he is unable to come up with cash or bond. Her targets could include New York City’s famous office skyscrapers, one of Trump’s massive estates and mansions outside the city, or cash and stock accounts or even a private jet he calls “Trump One.”
Trump’s lawyers said obtaining bonds would be “practically impossible” because he would need to commit about $550 million in cash and liquid investments to bond companies to continue his appeal. They said 30 bond companies denied Trump’s request to obtain bonds so he could continue his appeal.
Trump posted on his “Truth Social” platform last week that he had nearly $500 million in cash that he intended to use on his campaign and said James “wants to take that money away from him.”
But his attorney, Chris Keys, told CNN that’s not the case.
“What he’s talking about is funds reported on his campaign disclosure forms that he accumulated through years of owning and managing successful businesses,” Keys said. “This is exactly what Letitia James and the Democrats are targeting for cash.”
During a week-long civil trial late last year, Trump accused James of suing him, saying his property was worth more than the numbers on financial forms that James claimed were too high.
Regardless, Trump argued in the case that the valuation cited in the loan application was largely irrelevant because the bank did its own background checks and he ultimately repaid the loan in full, so no one suffered financial harm.
Trump frequently attacked New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron in impromptu news conferences as he walked into the courtroom to hear days of trial testimony and called the final $454 million verdict a “Shocking numbers.”
Trump said on “Truth Social” on Monday, “There should be no fines. Nothing wrong done! Why should I be forced to sell my ‘baby’ because a corrupt New York judge and AG set A false and ridiculous figure.” He was referring to Ngolon and James.
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