MANHATTAN (CN) — A New York City judge on Thursday set a firm March 25 trial date for Donald Trump’s criminal hush money case to begin, marking the first criminal trial of this year for the former president and 2024 Republican frontrunner.
“We’re moving ahead to jury selection on March 25," Manhattan trial court Justice Juan Merchan said Thursday morning. He immediately issued a ruling denying Trump’s motions to throw out the case, and then affirmed the previously set trial date.
Trump’s lawyer Todd Blanche quickly voiced objections to the ruling, calling it a "grave injustice" to move forward with the imminent March trial date.
The judge was not moved by Blanche’s gripes that Trump’s Manhattan trial is competing with the indicted former president’s other criminal proceedings in Florida, Washington, D.C., and Georgia.
“You don’t have a trial date in Georgia, you don’t have a trial date in Florida,” the judge barked, noting that he has been in communication with U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan in Washington. “You don’t have a real trial date.”
“As you know, there’s a lot of moving parts in the D.C. case,” the judge said. “Nobody knows what’s going to happen and when it’s going happen.”
“You knew about this case,” the judge told Trump’s defense attorney. “You willingly chose to accept those cases,” he said. “You proceeded at your own peril.”
The judge ordered Trump's lawyers to identity the exhibits they intend to introduce at trial by March 15.
Merchan, who previously presided over the Manhattan district attorney’s tax fraud trial of Trump’s namesake company, said he expects the trial will last about six weeks.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg attended the conference on Thursday and later applauded the judge’s rulings.
“We are pleased that the court denied the defense’s motion to dismiss,” Bragg wrote in a statement. “We look forward to presenting our case in court on March 25, 2024.”
Unlike his boisterous affectedness at other recent New York trial appearances, Trump did not make any loud comments or interjections during Thursday’s hearing.
Speaking to reporters in the hallway outside of the courtroom after the 100-minute hearing concluded, Trump called the trial a “disgraceful situation” and clamed “legal scholars say there’s no crime.”
“I’ll be here during the day, and I’ll be campaigning during the night,” he said.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office brought a 34-count grand jury indictment against Trump last year, making him the first U.S. president to be criminally charged.
In the Manhattan criminal case in New York County Supreme Court, he faces charges that he falsified records at his namesake company to cover up money given to his then-attorney Michael Cohen in 2017, for facilitating payments to two women before the 2016 election in exchange for their silence about supposed extramarital sexual encounters.
Trump has long denied affairs with both porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal and pleaded not guilty to the hush-money charges last April.
Trump derided the case as election interference, speaking to reporters before he entered court around 9:30 a.m.
"How can you run for an election when you're sitting at a courthouse in Manhattan?" he exclaimed in the hallway outside of Merchan’s 15th-floor courtroom.
Trump was previously set to face trial earlier in March on separate criminal charges linked to his role in efforts to overturn the 2020 election, but the case has been delayed indefinitely while the Supreme Court reviews his presidential immunity claims.
On Wednesday, special counsel Jack Smith asked the Supreme Court to decline Donald Trump’s attempt to delay proceedings in his D.C. trial after an appeals court loss on his presidential immunity defense.
Follow @jruss_jruss
Subscribe to Closing Arguments
Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.
