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A judge has thrown out Donald Trump’s bid to dismiss the Stormy Daniels hush-money case and has set a trial date for March 25 in a blockbuster hearing in a New York court. The 77-year-old will be the first former president to stand in a criminal trial when he faces the jury accused of paying the adult firm star $130,000 to keep quiet about their alleged affair before the 2016 election.
He scowled at the packed courtroom as he walked to the front and sat back in his chair as Judge Juan Merchan rejected his bid to toss the case. As he entered the building surrounded by cops, Trump insisted ‘there is no case’ and said New York should be focusing on violent crimes and the surge of migrants rather than ‘made up crimes’. He ripped into the ‘dirty’ and ‘crime-ridden’ Big Apple, claimed President Joe Biden is targeting him because he is ahead in the polls and insisted there is ‘no crime’ even ‘if I am guilty’.
Trump was also open about how he wants to delay the trial ahead of the general election and said this was the latest ‘interference’ plot by his opponents. ‘We want delays, obviously. I’m running for election again,’ he defiantly told reporters before walking into court. ‘This is not a crime — and when you look at what’s going on outside on the streets, where violent crime is at an all time high, it’s a great double standard… what it is is election interference. It’s being run by Joe Biden’s White House ‘I love this city and I love this state. They have to focus on violent crime… You have a new form of crime now, you have migrant crime. Migrants are trying to beat up our police officers… and they’re after me for doing nothing wrong.’
In court were 17 court security officers and Secret Service agents who closely eyeballed journalists as they sat in the public gallery. Extraordinary security was in place at the New York Criminal Court ahead of the hearing. Roads around the courthouse in downtown Manhattan were closed off and barricades put along the streets with dozens of police officers standing guard. Anyone entering the court had to go through two sets of security screenings: one on the ground floor and a second one on the 15th floor where the courtroom was located.
Trump is facing three other criminal trials for election interference and mishandling classified documents, but the hush money case will be first. Trump has denied 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree.
The case hinges on the claim that the records for the $130,000 payment to Daniels with the Trump Organization, Trump’s real estate business, were faked in order to cover it up. The star witness is likely to be Michael Cohen, Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who claims that his former boss reimbursed him with $35,000 checks from his personal funds.
Rather than being recorded as a campaign contribution they were marked as legal expenses in breach of the law. The case is risky for the prosecution as it relies on a theory of combining two laws that has never been tested by a judge. In order for Trump to be found guilty of the felony offence, prosecutors would have to show he had an ‘intent to defraud’ which included the intent to commit or conceal a second crime. Trump’s lawyers will likely tear into Cohen, who served three years in jail after admitting tax crimes, lying to Congress and to campaign financial violations in 2018, all in relation to the payment to Daniels.
Daniels herself has said she will be testifying some time in March and could reveal embarrassing details about her affair with the former President. If Trump is convicted is it uncertain if he will spend any time in jail as the charges are Class E felonies, the lowest possible under New York state law. There are also questions over where Trump could even serve his sentence as a conventional prison poses major security risks. The hearing happened at the same time as an Atlanta court heard arguments about misconduct by prosecutors who have charged him with election interference in a separate case.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is accused of engaging in an improper personal relationship with the lead prosecutor. Trump and 18 others are accused of a conspiracy to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia. Trump is facing a third trial in Washington for trying to subvert the results of the election but the date has been postponed indefinitely while the Supreme Court considers whether he had Presidential immunity.
The fourth criminal trial is due to take place in Florida in May and relates to Trump’s illegal retention of classified material after he left office in 2021. Trump has denied wrongdoing in all the cases.
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