SAN FRANCISCO
Lee Heidhues 3.2.2024
The recent buzz about Donald Trump’s criminal indictments has been about how successful he’s been in delaying the inevitable. His day in criminal court.
Apparently lost in all the hand wringing by pundits that Trump will not be facing a jury soon is one undisputable fact. Trump goes to Trial on March 25 in a Manhattan courtroom.
At issue. A 34 count criminal indictment. The hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels. In an effort to stop news of Trump’s relationship to become public before the 2016 presidential election. It worked.
Soon a jury of 12 New Yorkers will soon decide if Trump is criminally responsible for these hush money payments.
The Trial will make for great legal, political and tabloid reporting.
Excerpted from The New York Times 3.2.2024
Donald Trump faces steep odds in his first criminal case, which was brought by the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg. Mr. Trump’s belligerent courtroom antics might not resonate with a jury in Manhattan, where only about 12 percent of voters supported him in the 2020 election.
Mr. Bragg’s evidence is extensive, featuring documents, tape recordings and testimony from Mr. Trump’s onetime confidants.
“I would expect Trump to try to act up,” said Ty Cobb, a veteran lawyer who worked in the White House Counsel’s Office during the Trump administration and who has since been critical of the former president. He added: “He needs to be aggressively muzzled by the lawyers if he is to avoid offending the jury.”
To avoid conviction, his defense team, led by Todd Blanche and Susan R. Necheles, will have to be stellar. They will most likely argue that the evidence does not directly implicate Mr. Trump, and that the witnesses are liars.
Lawyers who have represented Mr. Trump view the prospect of him testifying before Justice Juan Merchan as potentially disastrous. The judge is a no-nonsense jurist who presided over the conviction of Mr. Trump’s family business in a tax fraud trial.
If Mr. Trump insists, he could pose a make-or-break challenge for Mr. Blanche and Ms. Necheles.
They recently appeared before Justice Merchan at a pretrial hearing with their client mostly silent beside them, and seemed to test the tightrope he will walk during the trial. Mr. Trump wanted to delay it, but the judge promptly set a March date.
Mr. Blanche lodged objections, none of which swayed Justice Merchan, who quickly bridled. “Tell me something you haven’t already said today,” the judge said.
Shortly thereafter, Justice Merchan asked Mr. Blanche if he was done talking. He was not, but the judge cut him off, instructing Mr. Blanche to “please have a seat.”
“Yes, your honor,” Mr. Blanche replied, sitting down with Mr. Trump.
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