The latest on former president Trump’s legal battles
Donald Trump, the now-presumptive Republican presidential nominee, may be back in a federal courthouse in Fort Pierce today.
The purpose: a hearing at the Alto Lee Adams, Sr. United States Courthouse in which the former president is calling on Judge Aileen Cannon to toss the indictments against him and two aides for the possession, mishandling and concealment of classified and other documents at Mar-a-Lago.
The hearing, which filings indicate Trump may attend, comes barely two days after the 45th president claimed the necessary number of Republican delegates in his 2024 White House comeback campaign. On Tuesday, Trump swept the Mississippi, Georgia and Washington state primaries, collecting some 158 delegates to top the 1,215 majority required for his third-straight GOP nomination.
But the backdrop to Thursday’s court hearing isn’t politics, but rather a series of legal moves as Trump seeks to free himself from, or at least stall, 91 total felony counts, plus losses in costly civil cases against him and the family Trump Organization business.
Here is where things stand:
The documents trial: One witness speaks out.
This week, a Mar-a-Lago worker — known in court documents as “Trump Employee 5” — went public with his story.
Brian Butler said during an interview on CNN that he wanted people to hear what he said was the truth about Trump, the case and what occurred with the documents, some among the most sensitive of secrets, at the Palm Beach club.
Butler said he was braced for Cannon to release the names of the witnesses in the case, much to special counsel Jack Smith’s and legal experts’ chagrin. So he went public rather than “just waiting for it to come out. I think it’s better to at least say what happened than it coming out in the news, people calling me crazy. I’d rather just get it out there.”
Trump’s attorneys call for delay in start of New York criminal case
The former president’s legal team has filed an 11thhour bid to delay the start of his trial in New York on felony business charges related to alleged payments to keep a porn star from revealing a tryst in the weeks before the 2016 presidential election.
His lawyers’ argument is the court proceedings, set to begin March 25 in Manhattan, should be delayed until the U.S. Supreme Court rules on Trump’s presidential immunity claim. The high court is to hear those arguments the week of Aril 22.
Trump’s arguments in the filing include his belief that evidence to be presented against him, including tweets and public comments after 2017, should be barred from use because they are official presidential acts.
Trump scores notable, partial win in Georgia case
Fulton County Judge Scott McAfee on Wednesday tossed three of the charges against Trump in the Georgia case related to Trump’s alleged attempt to pressure state election officials after the 2020 presidential election.
The former president now faces just 10 counts of criminal wrongdoing in the case. Ditto for Trump’s codefendant, legal adviser and fellow Palm Beach resident Rudy Giuliani.
Bond approved in civil defamation case
On Tuesday, a federal court gave the OK for Trump to post a bond for $91.63 million. The bond will buffer Trump from efforts to collect the $83 million judgment against him in a defamation lawsuit brought by the writer and journalist E. Jean Carroll.
Trump is appealing the decision.
Bid for bond in business fraud case disputed
Trump also is seeking to post another bond, for roughly $100 million, as he appeals the $454 million judgment against him and his business in a civil fraud case in New York.
Trump has asked to post the bond at a substantially lesser sum, saying he would have to sell some of his real estate assets if required to offer a higher amount.
New York Attorney General Letitia James, who successfully prosecuted the complex case against Trump, said the real estate mogul-turned-politician has the financial wherewithal to post the higher bond.