Donald Trump must face trial
A New York judge has denied Donald Trump’s request to dismiss criminal charges stemming from payment of hush money to a porn star, paving the way for the first trial of a former US president.
Trump, 77, frontrunner for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Party President Joe Biden in the November 5 US election, asked Justice Juan Merchan to toss out the 34-count indictment charging him with falsifying business records to cover up the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election.
A handful of protesters held signs denouncing Trump and shouted “no dictators in the USA” outside the courthouse on Thursday.
Before the hearing, Trump repeated his claims that the case is politically motivated. “They wouldn ’ t have brought this except for the fact — no way — except for the fact that I’m running for president and doing well,” he said in a hallway outside the courtroom.
The trial is scheduled to start on March 25, before three other criminal cases Trump faces. Trump has pleaded not guilty.
Trump has used his frequent court dates to help raise money for his presidential campaign, though the strategy is seeing diminishing returns after he raked in millions at the time of his first appearances in 2023.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges brought by Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat. The former president has pressed for the case to be dismissed, arguing that state laws do not apply to federal elections. Merchan will now determine whether the trial proceeds as scheduled.
Trump ’ s political and legal calendars are increasingly overlapping ahead of his expected rematch with Biden, who defeated him in the 2020 election.
In another court hearing on Thursday, Trump’s lawyers were to ask a Georgia judge to disqualify the prosecutor who charged him and several allies with crimes involving attempts to overturn his 2020 election loss in the state. Prosecutor Fani Willis has admitted to having a romantic relationship with a lawyer on her team.
Trump also faces federal charges in Washington over his efforts to overturn his election loss and in Florida over his handling of classified documents. Trump has pleaded not guilty in all the cases.
The Manhattan case centres on former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen’s $130,000 payment to Daniels — whose real name is Stephanie Clifford — to prevent her from speaking out publicly ahead of the 2016 presidential election about a sexual encounter she has said she had with Trump a decade earlier. Trump has denied this happened. Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to violating federal campaign finance laws.
Prosecutors have said Trump ’ s NewYork-based family real estate company recorded Trump ’ s 2017 reimbursements to Cohen as legal expenses, violating a state law against falsifying business records to conceal another crime.
In this case, prosecutors say Trump was seeking to cover up federal campaign-finance law violations as well as violations of a state law that prohibits promoting a candidacy by unlawful means.
Trump ’ s lawyers argue that he has been targeted for “selective prosecution”.
Bragg ’ s office says that anyone who behaved similarly would have been prosecuted, pointing to Cohen’s guilty plea.
Trump ’ s lawyers argued that state prosecutors cannot use Trump ’ s alleged concealment of federal election law violations to justify the false records charges, and that the state law does not apply to federal elections.
Bragg ’ s office has said that the law on business records falsification is not restricted to cases involving state-level crimes, and that the state law applies to both federal and state elections. /