Donald Trump may delay his jury trial for a YEAR despite showing up for an arraignment on Tuesday
Donald Trump could delay his successful secret money trial in New York City for up to a year, according to federal prosecutors.
Trump is expected to arrive in the Big Apple today ahead of his arraignment Tuesday after District Attorney Alvin Bragg successfully convinced a Manhattan grand jury last week to indict the former president.
He is accused of paying porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to shut up before the 2016 election.
Trump has since spoken out against the impeachment, calling it a political ploy, but it is unlikely that he will go to trial until next year.
Federal prosecutors say his lawyers will likely file a series of pretrial motions to delay the trial even though a federal judge likely wants the case heard before the 2024 presidential election.
Trump is once again running to be the Republican nominee, which means the case should be heard before November 2024.
Marc Agnifilo, a former assistant US attorney and former assistant district attorney for Manhattan, predicted Friday that former President Donald Trump might not face trial for a year on charges that he paid Stormy Daniels $130,000 in hush money.
Trump has since spoken out against the impeachment, calling it political ploy, but his legal team has said he will turn himself in to authorities on Tuesday. The former president is pictured here at a rally in Waco, Texas, on March 25.
Marc Agnifilo, a former assistant US attorney and former assistant district attorney for Manhattan, explained to MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Friday that the New York court system could allow Trump’s legal team to file a series of pretrial motions and appeals in an effort to delay the trial.
One such motion the defense could bring would be to argue before a judge that the evidence presented to a grand jury was legally insufficient to justify an indictment, a tactic Agnifilo said he hopes Trump’s legal team will take advantage of.
“I hope this trial is maybe a year from now,” he told Maddow. I think everyone is going to be watching.
He noted, however, that Judge Juan Merchan “is not going to want it to delay, buying a year is probably a safe assumption for the timeline.”
If that is the case, Agnifilo said, Trump could end up on trial on a federal indictment before facing a jury on the New York state charges, provided federal prosecutors indict the former president soon.
In addition to the campaign finance charges he faces in New York, Trump faces multiple Justice Department investigations into his handling of classified documents after leaving office and his possible role in inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot. . He has denied all charges.
Former federal prosecutor Franklin Monsour also told Newsweek that criminal cases can often move as fast as the defendant wants, and that Trump will likely delay a trial as long as possible to make his accusation headline.
“Defendants and their lawyers usually delay the trial to allow time to learn as much as possible about the case from the government,” he said. “Here, that delay will include Trump filing a motion to dismiss based on the novelty of the charges.
“And it’s an old case,” he added of the alleged 2016 payment. “As a general rule, older cases are more difficult to prove in court. So Trump will want to make it as old as possible before a jury hears it.
“All of that said, the judge will be wary of delay for delay’s sake and will want this case to be tried before the next presidential election,” Monsour said. That means trial within a year.
District Attorney Alvin Bragg successfully convinced a grand jury last week that the former president violated campaign laws by allegedly bribing Stormy Daniels.
Trump also faces a separate Justice Department investigation into his handling of classified documents, which were found at his Mar-a-Lago property after he left office.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is considering filing charges against Trump for alleged interference in the county’s 2020 presidential election.
At around the same time, however, Trump could also face charges for alleged interference in the 2020 presidential election in Fulton County, Georgia.
‘If I had to guess, once the indictments are returned and Donald Trump appears in court on that indictment and is prosecuted [and] read the charges that the grand jury has brought against him, we will probably face a trial date set six months to a year down the road, but the defense attorney will always try to file motions to continue to push harder and harder in the future,” Glenn said. Kirschner, a veteran federal prosecutor earlier this year.
“I think one year from the time the indictment is filed is a good rule of thumb for when we’re likely to see a trial.”
Acting Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan has been described as a “sensible judge” who would not hesitate to jail someone for violating a gag order.
Bragg (pictured March 30, 2023) has been criticized by Republican critics for politicizing his position and using it to go after an opposing party leader.
The former president’s legal team already plans to file a motion to immediately dismiss the case against him.
We will take the charge. We’ll look into it,” Trump’s lawyer Joe Tacopina told CNN on Sunday morning.
‘The team will look at all, all the potential problems that we can challenge, and we will.
“And of course I very much anticipate a motion to dismiss being filed because there’s no law to accommodate this.”
Trump became the first former president to be indicted Thursday when Manhattan District Attorney Bragg announced the charges against him.
In his indictment against the former president, New York City District Attorney Bragg claimed that Trump was aware of a payment made to Daniels to keep her quiet during the campaign about their alleged affair a decade earlier.
Trump insists that he has never had a sexual relationship with Daniels and says he was not aware that his attorney at the time, Michael Cohen, settled with the porn star and her lawyer.
He now plans to speak from his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, following an arraignment Tuesday, where the former president will be indicted, have his mugshot taken and his fingerprints taken.
But he may be limited in what he could say as a New York judge prepares to place a gag order on the former president.
“Trump’s legal team now thinks the Manhattan judge will take the unprecedented step of silencing the leading presidential candidate with an unconstitutional gag order tomorrow,” a source said.
“Trump’s legal team is considering adding a First Amendment attorney to the effort to combat this and will fight it to the end.”
Breaking the gag order could result in a $1,000 fine and a prison sentence of up to 30 days, under New York law.
Pro-Trump protesters set up on lawn chairs near Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday, April 2, with signs, flags and megaphones.
Many say the impeachment against Trump has only bolstered their support for his 2024 presidential bid and energized his already enthusiastic base.
Trump has even made this claim, saying the impeachment is only helping his chances of being elected to another term in the White House.
And his lawyer, Joe Tacopina, has said that Americans concerned with upholding justice should worry about the politicization of the judicial system.
Since then, supporters of the former president have lined the street leading to his Mar-a-Lago property with flags and signs endorsing Trump and criticizing the Democratic district attorney.