Donald Trump sued the judge overseeing his New York criminal trial a week before it was scheduled to begin. According to multiple reports, Trump filed a lawsuit against Judge Juan Merchant, hoping to delay the trial.
Trump faces trial for falsifying business records to cover up an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels. Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 to prevent her from going public with details of their relationship before the 2016 presidential election.
The former president has pleaded not guilty to 34 counts of falsifying business records. His trial was originally scheduled to begin in March but was delayed after his attorneys protested the prosecution’s handling of pretrial discovery. Judge Merchan postponed the start date to April 15.
Trump wants his criminal case to be delayed longer or dismissed. The silent review judge rejected Trump’s request.
“[Prosecutors] “We went way beyond what they asked for, and it’s really strange that we’re taking the time to be here,” the judge said during the March 25 hearing.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg challenged Trump’s latest attempt to delay the trial. Bragg said Trump once again raised the argument that he was “seeking to recuse himself by hiring a court family member,” but that argument has been denied.
“Defendant’s motion is not a good-faith effort to establish legitimate grounds for recusement from the court,” Bragg wrote. “Instead, this motion is nothing more than an attempt to end orders restricting extrajudicial speech and to taint the court file with personal attacks against the court and its families as part of a baseless effort to appeal to the fairness of these proceedings. Issue. This motion is another last-ditch attempt to address the defendant’s real objective, which, as the Court has recognized, is to postpone this proceeding indefinitely. As this Court has repeatedly held, there is no valid reason to avoid or postpone the impending proceedings. trial. Defendant’s present motion should be denied.”
Trump is awaiting trial on criminal charges in New York and elsewhere. He has also been charged in two federal cases and one state case in Georgia.
