Manhattan Judge Juan Manuel Merchan has delayed former President Donald Trump’s hush-money criminal trial until mid-April due to a “last-minute evidence drop.”
Merchan said he is holding the hearing to determine if prosecutors should face sanctions or if the case should be dismissed, as Trump’s lawyers have requested.
The trial had been scheduled to start on March 25. The delay means the trial would start no earlier than April 15. Prosecutors had said they wouldn’t object to a short delay.
In a letter Friday, Merchan told Manhattan prosecutors and Trump’s defense team that he wanted to assess “who, if anyone, is at fault for the late production of the documents,” whether it hurt either side and whether any sanctions are warranted.
The judge demanded a timeline of events detailing when the documents were requested and when they were turned over. He also wants all correspondence between the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which is prosecuting Trump, and the U.S. attorney’s office, which previously investigated the matter in 2018.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office declined comment. Trump lawyer Todd Blanche also declined comment.
Trump’s team asked for 90 days and a dismissal.
The prosecutors claim the new evidence is “largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case.” However, the evidence is “exculpatory and favorable to the defense” against Michael Cohen, according to the AP.
A Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump on 34 counts of falsifying business records.
DA Alvin Bragg inherited the case when he came into office in 2022 but suspended it. Then, he brought it back when Trump announced his 2024 presidential campaign.
It sure sounds like Trump might have a point about it being political.
Supposedly, Trump paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair. His former lawyer, Michael Cohen, said he set it up and paid it out of his pocket, and the Trump Organization paid him back as “legal expenses.”
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Hate to say it but since I’m a pessimist, I have to point out they’re not giving up on the lawfare. If not this than something else, and if not a trial before the election than after, even if President Trump is reelected. And Congress, if they control it, might not certify the election of a “convicted” DJT. Even if not convicted they might not, and even if they do, convicted or not, they’ll go for impeachment again. Probably within a week after he’s in office.
Or to put it another way, the last thing this scungeoid “defenders of democracy” will do is accept the results of an election they lose, or they can’t steal.
And just like that Democrats will all be for insurrection that they accused Trump of inciting…except the difference here is Democrats will actually be committing an insurrection by deciding that the will of the people is meaningless when it comes to electing a President they hate.
Then watch all the Democrat propagandists in the media suddenly switch opinions when the talking points go out.
They can’t not certify on the grounds of a conviction on any charge except insurrection. The only grounds on which they can attempt not to certify are either that they actually believe him to be guilty of insurrection (regardless of whether he’s been charged with it), or that they actually believe the reported result to be incorrect.
In the former case, even then it would end up in court, probably not on whether he’s actually guilty, which the courts would probably say is up to congress to decide, but on the grounds that: (1) the presidency is not one of the offices from which insurrectionists are excluded; (2) the presidential oath is not one of those specified in the qualifying clause; (3) the amnesty of 1872 removes the disability from all persons, past and future, except those specifically listed, which doesn’t include Trump.
As for certifying the electoral votes and then impeaching him, if they get the house they can try it, but it will never get through the senate.
There’s lots of shit Democrats can’t do, but go ahead and do it anyway.
Who exactly is going to stop them?
The media? 😂😂
Bidens weaponised DoJ? 😂
The straight shooters in the FBI? 😂😂
Who could stop them, if they were to try it, might well be the Supreme Court. The principles involved wouldn’t be very different from those in Adam Clayton Powell’s case, where the Supreme Court did intervene and rule on Congress’s power to be the judge of its members’ elections, returns, and qualifications. And just as in that case the court ruled that a house can only refuse to seat a member if it genuinely disputes his election or qualifications, and not just because it doesn’t want him, it would likely make the same ruling here, that Congress can only reject electoral votes if it genuinely believes them to be invalid, or the candidate to be unqualified.
Who could stop them, if they were to try it, might well be the Supreme Court.
And how would they do so? The current executive branch clearly wouldn’t be interested in supporting them. Congress itself wouldn’t be interested. How many law officers does the SC have? How many divisions?
When you say “can’t” you really mean “shouldn’t” without acknowledging how far from “should” and “shouldn’t” we are these days.
So, assuming everything you say about the legal and constitutional requirements is accurate, the peaceful transition of power in the event of DJT victory depends on the democrats’ willingness to comply with the law and do their duty., notwithstanding that democrats created and fanned the Russian collusion nonsense, manufactured DJT’s impeachments and fabricated a J6 narrative since, well J6. Everything hinges on their integrity? Would you take that bet in Vegas?
No, I wouldn’t bet five cents on their integrity, and am not relying on it at all. I have no doubt they would try something if they could get away with it. But if they act blatantly against the law then what they do is a nullity, and nobody need take it into account. If their refusal to count an elector’s vote is invalid then the vote counts and the president is elected, whether they count it or not. The count is not what makes a president. It might well end up in the courts, but there Trump would prevail.
This is why all the Republicans are stepping down
Traitors all
It saves us the work involved in kicking them out.
The Traitor Republicans who are stepping down are Freedom Caucus members who supported Trump. That should tell you something.
Like Turtle? 🤔😂😂
Keep drinking that Kool Aid. It’s Never Trumpers like Ken Buck who are stepping down.
The left already said there is nothing to see here when John Edwards was nailed for the same thing
Not being a lawyer, I don’t see the issue if both parties agree to terms before a trial or even an accusation.
Mutual agreement is hardly the cause for persecution, and isn’t “settling out of court” pretty much a standard procedure?
The problem is cases like this ending up in a court instead of being dismissed out of hand. Nothing Trump did is anything different to any number of Democrats and whsat they have done in the past 🙄
From what I understand, Bragg gave the Trump defense the selected portions of Cohen’s original testimony and deposition which he had received (or at least most of it). The Trump team wanted it all, because (of course) the parts the prosecution doesn’t show you are the parts that impeach their star witness and his long history of perjury. Then the DOJ magically comes up with the whole collection of Cohen’s Fairy Tales right now (by amazing coincidence) and drops it right in Bragg’s lap, then *announces* it so he can’t just cover it up and pretend it never happened. Since Bragg is determined to get this sham of a trial rammed through before the election (because it is political, of course), he can’t sort through the collection and only give bits and pieces to the Trump team because they’ll ask for more, and get continuances, so he just jams it all in a box and throws it at them with a “Here! Everything I just got. Take it.”
So now Bragg has his sorry excuse for a political case that even the FEC and DOJ didn’t want to touch, a rapidly closing window that he might not be able to jam the garbage through in time, and a star witness shown on video perjuring himself multiple times in open court. I feel a little sorry for him. Just a little. Measured with a microscope.
Why exactly would you feel sorry for his sorry racist a$$
Perhaps it’s just me but would/could someone please explain to me what laws specifically were broken when Cohen paid Skanky Daniels $130K to keep quiet and then was reimbursed by Trump? Because for the life of me aI can’t figure that out. And really, if paying so-called “hush money” to keep your indiscretions quiet then I’m sure that many Congressional democrats would be guilty of the same “crime”.
Also , I seem to remember that Trump had sued Skanky Daniels for breach of the non-disclosure agreement and Clifford was ordered to pay back the $130K. Am I remembering wrong and if not did she actually ever pay that money over to Trump. Just wondering.
The problem here is that the sex was between consenting adults and Democrats hate that thought!
They were heterosexual, so . . .
That is the $64M question. As I understand it, the alleged crime is not the payment, or even the reimbursement, but the fact that the reimbursement was accounted for as “legal expenses”. If I understand correctly (and I’m not at all sure that I do), the allegation is that when your lawyer gives you a bill for various services he has rendered, and you pay it, if any of the things he billed you for are not, strictly speaking, “legal expenses” you’re on the hook. Or something like that. I’d bet that nobody has ever in their own life held themselves to such a definition.
What you described is a problem. Your lawyer billing you as if it’s for legal services but it’s not, that can be a problem. That’s not what Trump did.
What Trump did was to issue financial statements (and as an owner of a business he issued many) omitting the hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels. The hush-money payments were perfectly legal. But according to the prosecutor, he had to list them as hush-money payments on all his financial statements, and there’s a fine each time you issue a “fraudulent” financial statement. So every time he left out that awkward (immaterial) detail, he gets a big fine, and he’s supposed to get that big fine times 100 if he issued 100 financial statements all with the same lack of mentioning it.
Mind boggling, how this is still in court.
Yes, by all means, Christian Republicans who supported Trump in the past should just look away, nothing to see here, when Cohen paid porn star Skanky Daniels $130K to keep quiet about her sex with Trump. I’m getting a really uncomfortable vibe here about LI commentators watching Porn Hub videos of Daniels and wishing they could be like Trump. Prove me wrong.
Yet you’re not uncomfortable with Democrats main streaming fucking children.
Kinds tells us everything we really need to know about you JR. If it’s something that you politically agree, in this case democrats fucking children or killing unborn babies, then you’re fine with any of the Democrat supported depravity.
Yet because you detest Trump, two adults having consensual sex is suddenly the very worst thing on the face of the planet.
Yes JR, you’re such a straight shooter. So straight we see right through you 😂😂
Have you checked Powerline for a “”””quote”””” about LI that perfectly matches the drivel you post here, JR?
Or Instapundit?
1. I can see Christians having a problem with his having had an affair with her in the first place. But I can’t see why they would object to his having paid her not to tell anyone about it. On the contrary, they of all people would be likely to understand that.
2. In any case, no Christian ever supported Trump on the understanding that he was a member in good standing of their religion. At most they would have regarded him as “a sinner like us all”, but he was clearly an unrepentant one. No, his Christian supporters knew very well what kind of person he was, but as many of them openly put it, they weren’t supporting him for preacher, they were supporting him for head madam, on the excellent grounds that he would be likely to do more good in that position, and less bad, than Biden would. When you hire a landscaper to drain a swamp you don’t usually care about his morals, you just care that he’s good at his job.
I missed the part where you proved that DJT would have ever had sex with “Stormy Daniels” even if she begged him and paid him. He probably never met her, just like the other bitch. When these sexual contacts were supposed to have occurred, DJT was considered one of the sexiest men alive. What would he be doing with such women?
No. He had sex with her. Don’t fool yourself. DJT has a very interesting and expansive sex life.
After all, he’s one of the sexiest men alive.
And there are at least a billion reasons why DJT is or was ranked among the ‘sexiest men alive’.
Wow, that’s gross slander.
Isn’t there a special fund to pay off congress’ sex scandals?
Yes there is
There was. But since it came to the public’s attention the claim is now that taxpayer money will no longer be used to pay off Congress member’s
indiscretionssex scandals.And of course we believe everything they tell us, right? Right??!? 🙄
No, the fund is to settle all kinds of lawsuits by staff against congressmen, including but not limited to claims of sexual harassment, that being something for which employees often sue their employers. Since congressional staffers are employed by the congress, not by the individual congressman, it’s the congress they sue and the congress that must settle or go to court.
There is, of course, nothing illegal about settling lawsuits. But Ms Daniels had no lawsuit against Mr Trump, so there was nothing to settle. The payment was to buy her silence, which was perfectly legal, but then we get into the arcane minutia of campaign finance laws and accounting laws and into the realm of things that may be alleged to have been illegal but which no normal person would ever imagine could be illegal or would worry about doing.
>>The prosecutors claim the new evidence is “largely irrelevant to the subject matter of this case.” However, the evidence is “exculpatory and favorable to the defense” against Michael Cohen, according to the AP.
If the prosecution did withhold exculpatory information then they are in violation of the Brady Rule that requires them to turn over all evidence both favorable and unfavorable to the defense and they should be sanctioned and at least a mistrial be declared.
Of course, we all know that won’t happen. The Judge will find some reason to continue the trial. That’s guaranteed.
Brady Rule
This Just In:
Letitia James just announced bringing charges against The Orange Crush for fraudulently mis-valuing the “hush money” transaction with Stormy Daniels. From her press conference:
“Whatever went on wasn’t worth any $130,000. And his reputation has never been worth more than fifty cents. And none of it was hush, hush, anyway.
Her office is charging Orange Man Bad, his lawyer, bank, accountant, and the janitor who cleans his office, plus anybody named “Donald” who has cut a check in NY State in the last 12 years.
Man, given the crazy lawfare that’s been going on, you really need to label this sarcasm. Or prophecy. But distinguish it from actual news so we’re not all asking “Hey, where’s the link?”
The whole case is garbage based on a garbage, and so anything that isn’t a dismissal is also garbage. But that’s the norm when it comes to suing or prosecuting Trump these days.
Falsifying business records for not reporting some money (a non-material amount) to keep Stormy Daniels from creating a scene. Unheard of, for that to be prosecuted.