Trump porn star trial
Start date set for next month as he fails to get fraud case axed
DONALD Trump’s trial in connection with hush money paid to porn star Stormy Daniels has been scheduled to begin next month.
Trump failed yesterday in his bid for a long delay or to have the case dismissed.
It will be the first criminal prosecution of a current or former US president.
Trump, who is set to be the Republican nomination for the US election in November, has vowed to appeal and condemned the judge’s decision as a “clear case of election interference”.
The New York judge, Juan Merchan, who blasted the tactics of Trump’s legal team, set April 15 as the fraud trial’s start date.
Defence lawyers claimed prosecutors had until recently hidden thousands of pages of records from a previous federal probe and that the papers required a painstaking review.
Judge Merchan, who had already delayed the trial earlier this month, told the defence team they should have acted much sooner if they believed they didn’t have all the records they felt entitled to.
The hush money case, filed last year, is the only one of the prosecutions against Trump that appears likely to go to trial in the coming months.
The case centres on claims that he falsely logged $130,000 in payments as legal fees in his firm’s books “to disguise his and others’ criminal conduct”.
The money went to Trump’s then personal attorney, Michael Cohen, but prosecutors say it was not for legal work.
They claim Cohen was just recouping cash he had paid porn actress Ms Daniels, 45, on Trump’s behalf, so she would not publicise her claim of a sexual encounter with Trump years earlier.
Trump, 77, has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of fraud related to an alleged cover-up of that payment in his accounts
Cohen pleaded guilty in 2018 to federal charges related to the Ms Daniels payoff. He said Trump directed him to arrange it.
Trump had some good news yesterday as a New York appeals court reduced a $464million bond he was due to pay by midnight in relation to his conviction in a separate civil fraud case.
The court said he should instead put up $175m within 10 days. If he does this, the state will not be able to seize his assets while he appeals the conviction.
Last month a judge found he had falsely inflated assets to secure better loan deals. The judge then ordered him to pay $464m in fines and interest.
Trump yesterday compared himself to Jesus by invoking a passage in the Bible about accusers being tried.
[The judge’s decision] is a clear case of election interference
DONALD TRUMP REACTS TO FRAUD TRIAL RULING
DONALD Trump comparing himself to Jesus ahead of a court appearance was bizarre even by his egotistical standards. Let us pray that this November there is no resurrection of the deranged former President’s political career.
He is a stranger to the truth and a danger to democracy – and the world.