Trump hush money trial to start April 15
After being pushed back from its original date and Trump’s unsuccessful plea for further delay, the New York hush money case is set to begin trial in mid-April. Photo courtesy of WikiCommons
Donald Trump’s hush money case in New York — where he is accused on 34 counts of forging documents to cover up payments made to an adult film actress — has been given a trial date of April 15.
One of Trump’s four high-profile legal cases, the Manhattan charges are now lined up to be the first one to begin trial. The charges trace back to the 2016 presidential election — which Trump won — and the former president’s alleged payments made to cover-up a sex scandal with Stormy Daniels during his campaigning. This case is making history, as Trump will be the first U.S. president to go to trial for a criminal case.
The former president currently faces a total of 88 charges across four cases in different states.
In the Manhattan case, Trump is said to have allegedly hidden hush money payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels by falsely posing them as legal fees to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen. Trump faces 11 counts on fraudulent invoices for legal fees, 11 counts for written checks to Cohen and 12 counts on Trump’s accounting records for the transactions.
Chapman Republicans member Ethan Oppenheim, a senior double majoring in political science and philosophy, said he does not support Trump. He told The Panther that while he would like to see Trump “face justice for his actions,” he’s aware that his party tends to support Trump more through his controversies.
“These criminal trials play into [Trump’s] narrative that [he’s] targeted, and it legitimizes his claims for all of his supporters,” Oppenheim said. “And a lot of Republicans who are kind of lukewarm on Trump, these [cases] unfortunately changed a lot of their minds and made them think, ‘Wow, they’re targeting him. That must mean he’s right. He is kind of this savior for the party that we needed.’”
The case was temporarily delayed from its initial late-March trial date as the judge was investigating a misconduct claim made by Trump against the prosecutors.
Around 31,000 new pages of evidence were sent to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg on March 14, just over a week before the expected trial start date of March 25.
Bragg then pushed back the trial by up to 30 days to ensure that Trump’s team had time to review the documents.
Trump’s defense lawyers accused prosecutors of wrongfully withholding the potential evidence, and with their claim came a request for a 90-day delay in the trial.
At a March 25 hearing called to order by New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, Trump’s request for a delay was denied, and his case is set to begin trial on April 15.
Oppenheim commented that the Manhattan trial starting months before the election is “definitely not good for Trump.”
“It’s a very unprecedented election in a lot of ways, this obviously being one of them. He could be convicted and still win. So it’s pretty unprecedented. There could be, for all we know, a constitutional crisis. I hope not, but there’s a lot of questions that still need to be answered.”
Trump commented on the timing of the trial with the impending presidential election.
“I don’t know how you can have a trial that is going on right in the middle of the election,” Trump said at a press conference following the ruling. “It’s not fair.”
