Next month, former President Donald Trump will undergo his first criminal trial regarding a 2016 hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, though he has consistently denied any involvement in the alleged affair and has pleaded not guilty to the charges filed by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg.
Judge Juan Merchan announced that the trial’s jury selection process will begin on March 25, CNN reported.
In March of last year, a Manhattan grand jury indicted Trump on 34 felony counts of first-degree business record falsification. Trump pleaded not guilty to the charges. The prosecution alleges that Trump engaged in a “catch and kill” scheme, paying $130,000 to adult film actress Stormy Daniels.
Trump is the first president to be charged with a crime, living or dead, as a result of the New York indictment. It’s but one of the numerous ongoing legal cases that Trump is dealing with as he runs for the GOP presidential nomination in 2024 and a second term in office is the hush money case.
Trump has consistently claimed that the case is another of many “witch hunts” to prevent him from winning a second term in the White House, and there is no shortage of evidence — incidental and otherwise — to suggest he’s right.
BREAKING: A New York City judge just ruled that Trump's trial in the Stormy Daniels hush money case brought on by Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg will begin March 25.
Reminder that Bragg downgraded over half of felonies to misdemeanors in his jurisdiction yet had to elevate a… pic.twitter.com/E8d9gYl3r3
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 15, 2024
Following Merchan’s ruling to proceed with a trial, lawyers for the former president objected immediately, arguing they had planned to discuss the timing of the trial during the hearing.
Todd Blanche, a leading member of Trump’s legal team, decried the decision as a “serious injustice,” pointing to the former president’s myriad legal entanglements as evidence.
“We have been faced with compressed and expedited schedules in every one of those trials,” Blanche told the judge. “We — meaning myself, the firm and President Trump — have been put into an impossible position.”
Meanwhile, Bragg is facing two lawsuits linked to his decision to file charges against Trump, accusing him of misconduct regarding the hush money payment to Daniels before the 2016 election, which was facilitated by Trump’s then-personal attorney, Michael Cohen.
Fox News noted in June: “The Heritage Foundation, a Washington, D.C.-based conservative think tank, has sued Bragg under suspicions that he and his office coordinated or communicated with the Justice Department, the White House, and Rep. Daniel Goldman, D-N.Y., about the prosecution. In its lawsuit, Heritage claims that such actions eventually led to investigations by several U.S. House committees into Bragg’s conduct.”
