Trump asks to postpone NY trial on hush money
Former President Donald Trump has asked to postpone his New York hush money criminal trial by pointing to his presidential immunity claim under consideration at the Supreme Court.
Trump argues he is shielded because he was president at the time some of his actions took place. But legal experts said it would be difficult to argue that paying hush money to women was part of Trump’s official duties as president, to qualify for immunity.
At the federal level, Trump has argued Supreme Court precedents protect him from criminal charges.
“Without immunity from criminal prosecution based on official acts, the President’s political opponents will seek to influence and control his or her decisions via de facto extortion or blackmail with the threat, explicit or implicit, of indictment by a future, hostile Administration, for acts that do not warrant any such prosecution,” his lawyers wrote.
Federal prosecutors and judges in district court and the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals have ruled that Trump can be charged.
“For the purpose of this criminal case, former President Trump has become citizen Trump, with all of the defenses of any other criminal defendant,” the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled regarding Trump’s federal election case. “Any executive immunity that may have protected him while he served as President no longer protects him against this prosecution.”
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on the question April 25. But the New York trial is scheduled to begin March 25.
Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg argued that the former president falsified the records to hide hushmoney payments before the 2016 election to Stormy Daniels, a pornographic actress, and Karen McDougal, a former Playboy model, to stop them from talking about allegations he had sex with them.
Trump contends because the issue is unique – no former president has ever faced criminal charges before – that New York Judge Juan Merchan should postpone his case at least until the Supreme Court rules, to avoid potentially having to hold the trial twice.
“The adjournment would also ‘avoid the unnecessary risk of inconsistent adjudications as to the defenses asserted’ by President Trump in state and federal courts relating to the presidential immunity doctrine,” Trump lawyers Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles wrote in their filing. “The adjournment would mitigate the risk that an error in the application of this complex federal-law issue could require the Court, the parties, the State, the City, and the County to expend the resources necessary to re-try the case.”
But legal experts said Trump already dropped his argument that the New York case involves official acts when he decided not to appeal a rejection of moving his case from state to federal court. U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein ruled that Trump’s alleged conduct in the New York case “does not reflect in any way the color of the President’s official duties.”