Trump fails in last-ditch attempt to stop trial on hush money payments
A New York state appeals judge denied Donald Trump’s bid to delay his April 15 trial on criminal charges stemming from hush money paid to a porn star while the former US president appeals a gag order in the case.
Associate Justice Cynthia Kern issued the order following a hearing yesterday morning at a mid-level appeals court. A full panel of appeals judges will later consider Mr Trump’s underlying challenge to the gag order.
The Republican presidential candidate’s lawyers said at the hearing that Justice Juan Merchan’s order restricting his public comments should be modified to let him respond to public criticism levelled by potential witnesses in the case.
“The First Amendment harms arising from this gag order right now are irreparable,” Mr Trump’s attorney Emil Bove said during the hearing.
Justice Merchan imposed the order last month barring him from verbal attacks on potential witnesses, court staff and individual prosecutors after finding Mr Trump made statements in various legal cases that the judge called “threatening, inflammatory” and “denigrating”.
The judge expanded the order to cover his relatives and those of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg after Mr Trump disparaged Justice Merchan’s daughter online. The order does not restrict Mr Trump’s speech about Justice Merchan or Mr Bragg.
Steven Wu, a lawyer with Mr Bragg’s office, said at the hearing that the trial should not be delayed since Mr Trump’s lawyers could have made the appeal earlier.
He also said his office had to increase security due to Mr Trump’s statements, and that potential witnesses were reluctant to testify because of Mr Trump’s comments.
“They know what their names in the press may lead to,” Mr Wu said. “This is a pattern of misconduct that causes predictable, terrifying consequences.”
Mr Trump is accused of covering up his former lawyer Michael Cohen’s €120,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels in exchange for her silence before the 2016 presidential election about a sexual encounter she said she had with Mr Trump a decade earlier.
Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records and denied any such encounter with Ms Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Mr Trump lost on Monday a last-ditch bid to delay the trial while he tries to move the case out of heavily Democratic Manhattan.
The hush money case is one of four criminal indictments Mr Trump faces as he prepares to challenge Democratic President Joe Biden in their US election rematch on November 5.
The others stem from his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Mr Biden and his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving the presidency in 2021.
Mr Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.