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Republican presidential candidate, former U.S. President Donald Trump attends a pre-trial listening to at Manhattan Felony Court docket on February 15, 2024 in New York Metropolis.
Brendan McDermid | Getty Photographs
A choose on Thursday mentioned that jury choice within the New York hush cash trial of former President Donald Trump will start March 25, and estimated that the trial will final six weeks.
Decide Juan Merchan confirmed that beforehand set trial begin date after denying Tump’s request to dismiss the case, the place the Republican is prices with 34 felony counts of falsifying enterprise data associated to the payoff to porn star Stormy Daniels.
“We’re shifting forward with March twenty fifth,” Merchan mentioned.
Trump, who was in Manhattan Supreme Court docket for the listening to Thursday, would be the first former president to face trial in a felony case.
His lawyer Todd Blanche referred to as the trial date a “nice injustice” and “election interference, as Trump is searching for the GOP presidential nomination.
Trump has pleaded not responsible to the costs stemming from a $130,000 cost to Daniels by his then-lawyer Michael Cohen shortly earlier than the 2016 election in trade for her silence about her alleged sexual tryst with the then-presidential nominee a decade earlier.
Trump, who denies having intercourse with Daniels, is the front-runner for the Republican nomination.
Along with the hush cash case, he faces three different pending felony circumstances, all of which have an opportunity of going to trial this 12 months.
“We’re happy that the Court docket denied the protection’s movement to dismiss,” Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg mentioned in a press release after the listening to ended Thursday morning. “We stay up for presenting our case in court docket on March 25, 2024.”
Former US President Donald Trump waves as he departs Trump Tower on his method to Manhattan Felony Court docket in New York Metropolis on February 15, 2024.
Yuki Iwamura | AFP | Getty Photographs
Throughout rhe listening to, Blanche complained to Merchan concerning the trial date being confirmed, saying “we have been put in an unimaginable place.”
Merchan snapped at Blanche for interrupting him because the choose responded to that argument.
“You understand about this case … I had made clear this was a date sure, you proceeded at your individual peril,” Merchan instructed the lawyer.
The choose dismissed Blanche’s argument that the trial in Manhattan would battle with a beforehand scheduled trial in early March in Washington, D.C., federal court docket, the place Trump is charged with crimes associated to inteferring within the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election.
Merchan famous that the March trial date in Washington was just lately cancelled as a result of Trump has appealed a ruling in that case which denied him presidential immunity from the costs.
“President Trump does have a proper and an essential proper,” Merchan mentioned.
“He won’t be in multiple trial on the similar time.”
Blanche later mentioned, “We vehemently object to what’s taking place on this courtroom and that President Trump will spend the subsequent two months getting ready for this trial throughout a marketing campaign.”
“It’s simply not one thing that ought to occur on this nation,” Blanche mentioned.
A lot of the remainder of Thursday’s listening to was taken up by a dialogue of proposed questions for the questionnaire that will likely be used to select a jury within the case.
The proposed questions together with asking jurors what information websites and exhibits they learn and watch, whether or not they consider, as Trump argues, that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, if they’ve learn any books by Trump, or given cash to a political motion committee.
“We’re not fascinated with whether or not somebody likes or dislikes President Trump, it’s whether or not they could be a truthful or neutral juror,” assistant district legal professional Joshua Steinglass instructed Merchan.
“We won’t discover a juror who doesn’t have an opinion of President Trump,” the prosecutor added.
Earlier than coming into the courtroom on Thursday, Trump mentioned, “This isn’t a criminal offense.”
He instructed reporters that the Manhattan District Legal professional’s Workplace filed the costs in opposition to him final 12 months within the hush cash case to hurt his probabilities of successful the 2024 presidential election.
“That is being run by Joe Biden’s White Home,” Trump mentioned. “That is only a means of wounding me within the election.”
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