WASHINGTON — Barring some truly dramatic developments this week, Donald Trump will make history again next Monday in New York City.

Unless the law rules in his favor, he would be the first sitting or former president to appear in a criminal trial. The lawsuit will play out in a New York City court for at least six weeks, with Trump facing charges related to hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels in the final days of the 2016 campaign. U.S. television networks have set up cameras outside the courthouse.

Trump’s lawyers are desperately trying to delay his date with justice, in stark contrast to the seriousness of the case against him. Most legal analysts believe the hush-money case is just one minor issue in the long list of criminal cases he faces. Even if convicted, the likelihood that the former president — a first-time offender — would receive a prison sentence is slim. But Trump is doing everything he can to play up the case, and for every reason in the book.

On Friday, we learned that Judge Juan Merchant’s lawyers have launched a new effort to bar him from the case, after a judge earlier this week rejected his first attempt. Trump insists he can’t get a fair trial because he claims the judge’s daughter showed bias against him. Loren Merchan served as president of Authentic Campaigns, a company that provided digital campaign services to several Democratic candidates. Many of them were the former president’s fiercest critics.

It’s unclear whether she still holds the position (all references to her have been removed from the company’s website), although the judge said in his ruling last August that she was still employed by the company at the time. In the latest filing, Trump’s lawyers claimed that his success in last week’s Republican primary “cemented his status as a political target” of Authentic, Ms. Merchan and their clients.

Ms Murcha’s father is unlikely to be moved by this argument, any more than he has previously questioned his ability to remain impartial despite his daughter’s political views. New York’s Commission on Judicial Ethics said “the judge’s impartiality cannot reasonably be called into question because of her daughter’s business activities or political views.” Trump has issued a gag order against him as he continues his efforts to target the judge’s family.

So why are Trump’s lawyers arguing this again?

First, because his legal strategy on all issues has always involved throwing as much chaff into the air as possible in an ongoing effort to delay the criminal case against him, and so far has been largely successful. But if that doesn’t work, and Trump must spend the next month and a half in a New York courtroom instead of campaigning, he wants to continue to give the impression that he’s the victim of prosecutorial persecution, or, as he has “Legal Benefits,” as proponents call it.

His goal is to blunt the impact of any conviction in Judge Merchant’s court and demonstrate that the Democratic establishment is conniving at his failed efforts to return to the Oval Office. Trump continues to insist that the Justice Department itself, led by Biden-appointed Attorney General Merrick Garland, is interfering in the election by bringing criminal charges against him.

In fact, Garland has nothing to do with the hush-money case in New York or another embattled case involving alleged election interference in Georgia. They are local in nature, and if Trump is reelected as president, he will not have the power to pardon his own convictions in either jurisdiction.

The two federal cases facing Trump – regarding his attempts to overturn the 2020 election results and allegations that he allegedly mishandled classified documents – are indeed charges brought by an independent special counsel working for the attorney general, Trump may be able to grant pardons in the unlikely event that any of them go to court before the November election.

Last week in federal court in Florida, special counsel Jack Smith was working urgently to bring Trump to justice. While Judge Erin Cannon, a Trump appointee, rejected the former president’s efforts to dismiss the case against him, she also criticized Smith for raising “unprecedented” concerns amid discussions about instructions that may ultimately go to the jury. and unfair” demands.

There has been speculation that Smith may even seek to remove Cannon from the case after months of frustration. Trump will love this decision because not only will it delay things further, it will provide fresh food for his persecution complex as he continues to try to make lemonade out of the legal lemons he faces.