(New York) Manhattan prosecutors said they were open to a 30-day postponement of Donald Trump’s criminal trial scheduled for March 25 in New York in a case of hidden payments to an adult film actress.
Such a postponement would offer further respite to the Republican candidate for the US presidential election in November, whose lawyers are seeking to delay as much as possible the opening of the four criminal trials in which Donald Trump is being prosecuted.
The former President of the United States also made a trip to a Florida court on Thursday where his lawyers made several motions asking for the prosecution to be dropped in the case of his management of documents classified as confidential upon his departure from the House. White in 2021. But Judge Aileen Cannon rejected the first of these motions.
PHOTO ELIJAH NOUVELAGE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Former President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump
31,000 pages
In a court document dated Thursday and made public, the Manhattan prosecutor’s office, led by prosecutor Alvin Bragg, said it was “ready for a trial on March 25” as planned, but did not “oppose a postponement until ’30 days to allow the defense to examine’ new documents submitted to the proceedings.
“Yesterday (Wednesday) afternoon, the federal prosecutor’s office produced approximately 31,000 pages of documents intended for the public prosecutor and the defense, in response to a request from the latter, and also indicated that a new additional delivery will follow by next week,” Manhattan prosecutors wrote.
Donald Trump’s lawyers want a 90-day postponement for this reason. They also asked to postpone the opening of the trial until the Supreme Court of the United States decides on the question of Donald Trump’s presidential immunity. The final decision on whether to postpone rests with Judge Juan Merchan, who is presiding over the trial.
Disguised accounts
“We will continue to fight to put an end to this bogus affair once and for all,” reacted one of Donald Trump’s spokespersons, Steven Cheung, on the social network Truth Social, assuring that the New York case was not based on “on no legal basis”.
Donald Trump, who will face Joe Biden at the polls in November, must appear from March 25 in New York in this case of payments to a former pornographic film star, Stormy Daniels.
Donald Trump, who pleads not guilty, is accused of having disguised the accounts of his real estate empire, the Trump Organization, to conceal the payment of $130,000 to the former actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, just before the presidential election. from November 2016.
This payment was intended to keep her silent about an alleged sexual relationship she had in 2006 with Donald Trump – which he denies – while he was already married to Melania Trump.
The former president, aged 77, is charged in this case with 34 accounting frauds, punishable by a maximum sentence of 4 years in prison in the most serious cases.
Appeal
Donald Trump has increased the appeals and challenges in the four criminal cases against him, with the hope of not being tried or convicted before the November election.
He has already succeeded in delaying the federal trial in Washington which was to begin on March 4 for “conspiracy against the American state”, concerning accusations of illicit attempts to reverse the result of the November 2020 election , won by Joe Biden.
The procedure is suspended while the question of presidential immunity is decided by the Supreme Court, which has set the debates on this question for April 25 and is not expected to rule before June or July.
The trial on the presidential archives, initially scheduled for May 20, will probably be postponed for several months, Judge Aileen Cannon wanting a sufficiently spaced timetable to allow “flexibility”, in particular because of the possibility of overlap with the other matters.
Finally, no date has been set in the trial which is to open in a Georgia court for illegal attempts to reverse the results of the 2020 US presidential election in this key state.