By MICHAEL R. SISAK -
The Associated Press
The criminal trial against Donald Trump in a New York court for secret payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election campaign will begin on March 25, according to Judge Juan Manuel Merchán, who dismissed the request for postponement of defense lawyers, taking advantage of the circumstance of the delay in the trial in Washington DC of the former president for alleged electoral interference.
This criminal trial in New York on charges of falsification of business records with the intention of concealing illegal conduct related to his presidential campaign will therefore be the first of the four criminal trials that the former president faces (due to the classified documents found in Mar- a-Lago and for electoral interference and the assault on the Capitol)
Trump came this morning to attend the hearing, which took place in the same Manhattan courtroom where he pleaded not guilty last April to the 34 charges against him for allegedly hiding payments to the actress, with the that he allegedly had an extramarital relationship, as charges from his presidential election campaign in 2016. That accusation was historic because it made him the first former president to be judicially accused of a crime in the history of the United States.
Former President Donald Trump arrives at Manhattan Criminal Court on Thursday, February 15, 2024 in New York. Mary Altaffer / AP
Since then, however, he has also been charged in Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. In recent weeks he has combined campaign events with court appearances;
This Monday, for example, he attended a closed-door hearing in the Florida case that accuses him of knowingly taking classified documents from the White House (and then hiding them) after his presidency.
Last year, Trump attacked the judge in the case in New York, accusing him of "hating him," and asked that he be removed from the case to move it from state court to federal court, without success.
Merchan has acknowledged making several small donations to Democrats, including $15 to Trump's rival in the 2020 election, now President Joe Biden, but indicated that he is confident in his "ability to be fair and impartial."