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- Trump appeared in his Manhattan felony hush-money case, and learned his trial date remains March 25.
- He had asked the judge to delay or dismiss the case. On Thursday, the judge said no to both requests.
- Trump failed to convince the judge that he's too busy campaigning, fighting other felonies.
There was nothing but bad news for Donald Trump as he returned to a Manhattan courtroom on his felony hush-money case Thursday — meaning no delay, and no dismissal of the 34 felony charges.
Trump had asked to delay the March 25 trial, insisting through his lawyer that he was too busy campaigning and fighting his three other felony cases.
But the judge rejected Trump's request to push back the trial date after a lively in-court back-and-forth that included the judge pointing out that March 25 was a date originally chosen by, and previously agreed to by, the defense when it was set nine months ago.
"It is completely election interference," complained Todd Blanche, Trump's lead attorney in both the state hush money case and the federal classified documents case in Florida, noting that the GOP frontrunner has primaries and caucuses "nearly every day" through March.
Trump sat quietly to Blanche's left at the defense table, wearing his standard uniform for court appearances: blue suit, red tie, and aggrieved expression.
"The fact that President Trump is going to spend the next two months working on this trial," instead of campaigning and defending himself in his three other felony cases, "should not happen," Blanche added, continuing to fight the trial date.
"It should not happen," the lawyer repeated.
"What's your legal argument?" state Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan countered.
"That is my legal argument," Blanche protested.
"That's not a legal argument," the judge responded. "I'll see you March 25th."
Trump's side had also asked, in papers filed in September, to dismiss the entirety of the case as too old , including on statute of limitations grounds, and as legally defective. This, too, the judge rejected.
Read the judge's decision here.
Merchan likewise nixed the defense's request to at least trim the case down to a single business record-falsification count. The defense had noted that only a single allegedly illegal hush-money payment — made to adult film actor Stormy Daniels — underlies the indictment.
And the judge further rejected the defense's request that the judge hold hearings to determine if the case should be dismissed because Trump was "impermissibly targeted" as part of a political vendetta.
In a parting blow capping the hour-long hearing, Merchan warned Trump's side that if they continue to drag their heels on turning over defense evidence to prosecutors, as statutorily required, the defense may be stopped from presenting the evidence at trial.
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"We are pleased that the Court denied the defense's motion to dismiss," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said of the decision. "We look forward to presenting our case in court on March 25, 2024."
The case alleges Trump lied 34 times in separate business documents, hiding a $130,000 payment that silenced Daniels days before the 2016 election. "An expansive and corrupt criminal scheme to conceal damaging information from the voting public," prosecutors called it in opposing Trump's motion to dismiss the indictment."This payment was illegal," they wrote.
Prosecutors noted that the proof of that illegality lies with Michael Cohen — Trump's then-personal attorney and now a key witness against him.
Cohen pleaded guilty and served time in federal prison after admitting he'd been the scheme's bag-man.
Cohen sent his own $130,000, borrowed on a home equity line of credit, to Daniels to ensure she would not go public with her claim of an affair with Trump, prosecutors allege. The payment was an illegal campaign contribution, Cohen admitted.
Trump then reimbursed Cohen in 2017 through a series of monthly checks that were illegally disguised as legal fees, prosecutors allege.
The falsified business records in the case include these checks, along with associated payment records in the books of the Trump Organization.
Read Manhattan prosecutors' 99-page rebuttal to Trump's dismissal motion here.
Trump's lawyers argued there would be nothing illegal about such a payment, and so any related document discrepancies would not rise to a felony.
Prosecutors countered that the prosecution is based exclusively on "the neutral application of the facts to the law," as they put it in their dismissal-motion response.
The case is on track to be tried first out of Trump's four felony indictments, starting with jury selection on March 25.
Trump's lawyers made a point Thursday of asking that prospective jurors not be questioned too closely about any ultra-conservative tendencies, including if they think the 2020 election was stolen.