That day, jury selection will begin, as planned, after Judge Juan Manuel Merchán rejected the request to postpone the first criminal trial facing the former president, who has three other criminal proceedings and one civil case open at the same time. who is trying to secure the Republican nomination for the November presidential election.
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Donald Trump's lawyers had tried to delay the process precisely thinking about the path to the presidential nomination. Therefore, it is a new setback after they tried unsuccessfully to provoke the resignation of Merchán, who was accused of acting with “hatred of Trump” and after changing the case from a state court to a federal one.
Merchán acknowledged having made small donations to Democratic candidates, including $15 to Joe Biden's campaign in the previous elections, in which he faced Trump, but assured that this did not compromise his ability to be impartial in the case of the alleged cases. bribes paid to adult film actress Stephanie Clifford, better known as 'Stormy Daniels'.
“It is totally electoral interference,” denounced Trump defender Todd Blanche, who complained that the judge intends to have him “sitting in a room in Manhattan” in the middle of the campaign for the Republican nomination.
The New York court's decision comes after an Atlanta court agreed to postpone the start of a trial for interference in Joe Biden's presidential proclamation, originally scheduled for March 4, which created a window for the process for bribes.
The accusations
In the New York criminal case, Trump must respond to accusations of having paid Daniels, 'Play Boy' model Karen McDougal and a former Trump Tower doorman who claimed to know of the existence of a child resulting from extramarital affairs, all This with the aim of avoiding revelations about the alleged infidelities of the magnate and conservative politician.
Trump's former lawyer, Michael Cohen, would have paid $150,000 to Daniels to prevent leaks about an alleged intimate encounter that the former president has categorically denied. Additionally, he arranged with the editor of the 'National Enquirer' tabloid to send $150,000 to McDougal.
Cohen later reported $420,000 as legal fees, and not as reimbursements for bribes paid, prompting prosecutor Alvin Bragg to charge Trump with falsifying internal records, a crime that could land him up to four years in prison. .
Cyrus Vance Jr., Bragg's predecessor in the Prosecutor's Office, had refused to prosecute Trump for the same reason, which is why the former president's lawyers have charged against the Democratic prosecutor, accusing him of trying to interfere in the electoral campaign.
The other causes
It is not the only legal front open for the former president, who must maneuver between campaign events and court appearances in three states.
In New York he faces a civil suit for alleged fictitious increase of assets to obtain lower insurance premiums and favorable credit conditions, an operation that would have saved him up to $136 million in interest alone.
The other criminal cases are being heard in Washington, Atlanta and Fort Pierce, Florida. In the first two he must respond to accusations related to the assault on the Capitol.
In the capital, a special prosecutor has filed charges on behalf of the Department of Justice for alleged conspiracy to overturn the results of Joe Biden's narrow victory in the presidential election, and in Atlanta he appears along with 18 other people before a district court for alleged attempts to overturn his defeat by pressuring the Georgia secretary of state to replace Democratic electors with his supporters.
In Florida he must respond to accusations of illegally retaining classified documents that were seized at his personal residence in Mar-A-Lago when he had already left the White House.
With AP
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