On Tuesday, Donald Trump was unsuccessful in his second attempt in as many days to postpone his trial on criminal charges related to payments of hush money to a porn star, which is scheduled for April 15.
During a hearing in a state appeals court at the intermediate level, the attorneys representing the former US president contended that the trial ought to be postponed so that he may contest a gag order pertaining to the case.
Associate Justice Cynthia Kern quickly turned down the request for a postponement, but the GOP presidential candidate’s underlying challenge to the gag order will be taken up later by the entire panel of appeals judges.
An inquiry for comment was not immediately answered by Trump’s attorneys.
On Monday, a different judge turned down Trump’s plea to postpone the trial in order to try and get the case out of Manhattan, which is overwhelmingly Democratic. According to a survey his lawyers conducted among Manhattan residents, 61% of respondents believed Trump was guilty and 70% had a bad opinion of him.
Emil Bove, the attorney for Trump, stated during the hearing on Tuesday that Justice Juan Merchan’s ruling limiting his public remarks ought to be changed to allow him to address criticism from the public made by possible witnesses in the case.
“The injuries to the First Amendment that this gag order is causing right now are irreversible,” stated Bove.
After discovering that Trump had made statements in a number of legal documents, Merchan issued the order last month prohibiting him from verbally attacking prospective witnesses, court personnel, and individual prosecutors in various legal cases that the judge called “threatening, inflammatory” and “denigrating.”
Trump had denigrated Merchan’s daughter online, so the judge extended the order to include his family as well as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s family.
Trump is free to talk about Merchan and Bragg without interference from the order.
Appellate Division hearing on Tuesday heard testimony from Bragg’s office attorney Steven Wu, who stated that the trial shouldn’t be postponed because Trump’s attorneys had the opportunity to file an appeal sooner.
In addition, he claimed that because of Trump’s remarks, his office had to bolster security and that prospective witnesses were unwilling to come forward.
As Wu put it, “They know what their names in the press may lead to.” “There is a pattern of misbehavior here, and the repercussions are foreseeable and scary.”
Stormy Daniels, a porn star, received a $130,000 payment from her former attorney Michael Cohen before the 2016 presidential election in exchange for her quiet on a ten-year-old alleged sexual encounter with Trump. Trump is accused of concealing this payment.
In response to 34 charges of fabricating company records, Trump has entered a not guilty plea and refuted ever having spoken to Daniels, whose actual name is Stephanie Clifford.
Trump is facing four felony indictments, including this one, as he gets ready to take on Democratic President Joseph Biden in their rematch on November 5 in the US election. The only case with a set trial date is the hush money case, which he has attempted to postpone until after the election.
The other instances are related to his efforts to overturn his 2020 election loss to Biden and his handling of sensitive government documents after leaving the presidency in 2021. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
(Reuters)
