Current:Home > reviewsWill Donald Trump go on trial next month in New York criminal case? Judge expected to rule Thursday -TradeGrid
Will Donald Trump go on trial next month in New York criminal case? Judge expected to rule Thursday
View
Date:2025-04-11 16:30:21
NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump is expected to be back in a New York court Thursday for a hearing that could decide whether the former president’s first criminal trial begins in just 39 days.
The hearing to determine whether Trump’s March 25 hush-money trial date holds will be held in the same Manhattan courtroom where the he pleaded not guilty last April to 34 counts of falsifying business records in an alleged scheme to bury stories about extramarital affairs that arose during his 2016 presidential campaign.
It would be Trump’s first return visit to court in the New York criminal case since that historic indictment made him the first ex-president charged with a crime. Since then, he has also been indicted in Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C.
Judge Juan Manuel Merchan has taken steps in recent weeks to prepare for a trial. If it goes off as planned, it would be the first of Trump’s four criminal cases to go to trial.
Over the past year, Trump has lashed out at Merchan as a “Trump-hating judge,” asked him to step down from the case and sought to move the case from state court to federal court, all to no avail. Merchan has acknowledged making several small donations to Democrats, including $15 to Trump’s rival Joe Biden, but said he’s certain of his “ability to be fair and impartial.”
Thursday’s proceeding is part of a busy, overlapping stretch of legal activity for the Republican presidential front-runner, who has increasingly made his court involvement part of his political campaign.
The recent postponement of a March 4 trial date in Trump’s Washington, D.C. election interference case removed a major hurdle to starting the New York case on time.
Just as the New York hearing is getting underway, a judge in Atlanta is set to hear arguments Thursday over whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis should be disqualified from Trump’s Georgia election interference case because of a “personal relationship” with Nathan Wade, a special prosecutor she hired for the case.
Trump is also awaiting a decision, possibly as early as Friday, in a New York civil fraud case that threatens to upend his real estate empire. If the judge rules against Trump, who is accused of inflating his wealth to defraud banks, insurers and others, he could be on the hook for millions of dollars in penalties among other sanctions.
Along with clarifying the trial schedule, Merchan is also expected to rule on key pretrial issues, including a request by Trump’s lawyers to throw out the case, which they have decried in court papers as a “discombobulated package of politically motivated charges marred by legal defects.”
Trump’s lawyers, Todd Blanche and Susan Necheles, accuse Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, a Democrat, of bringing the case to interfere with Trump’s chances of retaking the White House. Bragg’s predecessor, Cyrus Vance Jr., declined to pursue a case on the same allegations.
The charges are punishable by up to four years in prison, though there is no guarantee that a conviction would result in prison time.
The case centers on payoffs to two women, porn actor Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, as well as to a Trump Tower doorman who claimed to have a story about Trump having a child out of wedlock. Trump says he didn’t have any of the alleged sexual encounters.
Trump’s lawyer at the time, Michael Cohen, paid Daniels $130,000 and arranged for the publisher of the National Enquirer supermarket tabloid to pay McDougal $150,000 in a practice known as “catch-and-kill.”
Trump’s company then paid Cohen $420,000 and logged the payments as legal expenses, not reimbursements, prosecutors said. Bragg charged Trump last year with falsifying internal records kept by his company, the Trump Organization, to hide the true nature of payments.
Trump’s legal team has argued that no crime was committed.
___
Follow Sisak at x.com/mikesisak and send confidential tips by visiting https://www.ap.org/tips
veryGood! (269)
Related
- Warm inflation data keep S&P 500, Dow, Nasdaq under wraps before Fed meeting next week
- Half of Southern California home on sale for 'half a million' after being hit by pine tree
- Get 50% Off BareMinerals 16-Hour Powder Foundation & More Sephora Deals on Anastasia Beverly Hills
- Police have upped their use of Maine’s ‘yellow flag’ law since the state’s deadliest mass shooting
- New Mexico governor seeks funding to recycle fracking water, expand preschool, treat mental health
- Will Taylor Fritz vs. Frances Tiafoe finally yield Andy Roddick successor at Grand Slam?
- All the best movies at Toronto Film Festival, ranked (including 'The Substance')
- Why Ben Affleck Is Skipping Premiere for His and Jennifer Lopez’s Movie Amid Divorce
- Stamford Road collision sends motorcyclist flying; driver arrested
- Ralph Lauren takes the Hamptons for chic fashion show with Jill Biden, H.E.R., Usher, more
Ranking
- Louvre will undergo expansion and restoration project, Macron says
- Brenda Song Reveals Why Macaulay Culkin Romance Works So Well
- Dye in Doritos used in experiment that, like a 'magic trick,' created see-through mice
- Hunter Woodhall wins Paralympic gold, celebrates with Olympic gold medalist wife
- Tarte Shape Tape Concealer Sells Once Every 4 Seconds: Get 50% Off Before It's Gone
- LL Flooring, formerly Lumber Liquidators, closing all 400-plus stores amid bankruptcy
- California governor vetoes bill to make immigrants without legal status eligible for home loans
- North Carolina state Rep. Kelly Alexander Jr. dies at 75
Recommendation
Nearly 400 USAID contract employees laid off in wake of Trump's 'stop work' order
Linkin Park Reunites With New Members 7 Years After Chester Bennington’s Death
Bachelorette’s Jonathon Johnson Teases Reunion With Jenn Tran After Devin Strader Drama
Get 50% Off BareMinerals 16-Hour Powder Foundation & More Sephora Deals on Anastasia Beverly Hills
Louvre will undergo expansion and restoration project, Macron says
'The Bachelorette' boasted an empowered Asian American lead — then tore her down
Pamela Anderson takes a bow at TIFF for ‘The Last Showgirl’
North Carolina court orders RFK Jr.'s name to be removed just before ballots are sent