The criminal trial of Donald Trump for the bribe paid to a porn actress in 2016 will begin in April, following a 30-day delay granted by the judge following the lawyers of the former president of the United States, and Republican candidate for re-election in November, They said that the late disclosure of evidence harmed them in preparing their defense.

Judge Juan Manuel Merchan’s decision to delay what will be the first criminal trial in history once morest a former president of the United States represents another victory for the Republican, whose line of defense has been based on procedurally slowing down all the processes he faces: four criminal cases , the one mentioned from New York plus others in Washington, Georgia and Florida, and a couple of them civil, for which he has been sentenced to million-dollar fines. Buying time is essential for his political interests, as the elections on November 5 approach, in which he will face off once more, as he did in 2020, with Democrat Joe Biden. This week both reached the number of delegates necessary to guarantee their nomination.

The Manhattan prosecutor’s office that instructed the case of Stormy Daniels (name of the actress whose silence Trump bought in 2016 so that her extramarital relationship would not harm her electoral career) had requested this Thursday that the start of the trial, scheduled for March 25, be delayed a month, to give time to the defense Given the flood of new evidence received, tens of thousands of pages of documents that federal prosecutors already investigated in the trial of Michael Cohen, Trump’s confidant who made the bribe payment to Daniels in 2016. Cohen, Later converted into a prosecution witness once morest his former boss, he then detailed to the prosecution Trump’s payments not only to Daniels, but to two other women who claimed to have had relations with the magnate.

Lawyers from the Manhattan prosecutor’s office, Democrat Alvin Bragg, had been searching for the aforementioned documents for a year and, following receiving them, considered that the defense had the right to properly review the evidence, which is why they requested the postponement that Judge Merchan has granted. authorized this Friday. In fact, Manhattan prosecutors said they were ready to proceed to the trial on March 25, the day the jury was to be empaneled, but did not oppose a 30-day delay to ensure that Trump had the opportunity to review the new material.

The accusation of 34 crimes in the case of Stormy Daniels It was the first of four criminal charges brought once morest Trump last year. Although none of the other three cases have a firm trial date, the delay in the New York trial might complicate the scheduling of the others. The one from Washington is pending the resolution of the appeal presented by the Republican’s lawyers. Adding the four charges, the accused must answer for 91 crimes.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 charges of falsifying business records, filed under the heading “legal expenses,” to conceal the payment of $130,000 by his former lawyer Cohen to the porn actress, to buy her silence before the elections. 2016 regarding a sexual encounter that she says they had a decade earlier, and that she threatened to disclose in the final stretch of the presidential campaign. Trump also denies having had an encounter with the woman, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford.

The case for which the Republican will sit on the bench derives from the process once morest Cohen, for which Trump’s henchman was sentenced at the end of 2018 to three years in prison for a crime of illicit financing of the campaign, because the transaction sought to protect the image of the then Republican candidate. Cohen did not serve his full sentence due to the pandemic. Trump’s lawyers have argued that Cohen paid Daniels to avoid embarrassment to Trump’s family, not to boost his electoral chances, as prosecutors from the Manhattan district attorney’s office have alleged.

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An unexpected turn of the script, or of the calendar, in the busy year that Donald Trump faces might give the Republican candidate for re-election in November a judicial respite, as his lawyers have tried hard to play the dilatory card in most of the proceedings once morest him. former president (four criminal cases and a couple of them civil). Less than two weeks before the Republican took the stand in New York, on March 25, to answer to 34 criminal charges for the case of Stormy Daniels (the payment of a bribe to a porn actress to buy her silence for an extramarital affair), the prosecutors who handled the case have proposed this Thursday a delay of up to 30 days, a surprising development in what is expected to be, if nothing else delays, the first criminal trial once morest a former president in US history.

The office of the Manhattan district attorney, Democrat Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump a year ago with 34 crimes for covering up a sex scandal during and following the 2016 presidential campaign – the bribery was intended to prevent a scandal so as not to harm his candidacy. -, explained that the delay would give the defense time to review a new batch of records, which it has recently received from federal prosecutors although it has been seeking them for a year. Federal prosecutors investigated dark money payments years ago, not only to Stormy Daniels but to two other women, who gave rise to the case.

The new evidence occupies tens of thousands of pages, which is why lawyers for Trump, the favorite candidate according to several polls, requested that the trial be delayed by 90 days. It is not the first time that the defense has opted for a delaying maneuver to buy time and delay the appearances in Trump’s dock as much as possible, but with the approval of the prosecutors now and their proposal to delay the start of the trial for a month, it seems that This time it will be more than likely that they will succeed. Curiously, the Manhattan case was until today the only one of the four criminal cases that had not suffered delays. Trump clinched the Republican presidential nomination for the third time this week.

In a document filed Thursday, lawyers for the Manhattan district attorney say they are prepared to begin the trial on March 25 as scheduled, but also that they are not opposed to a 30-day delay “out of an abundance of caution and to ensure that the defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials.”

The trial arising from another criminal charge once morest Trump in Washington for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 elections, also initially scheduled for this month, has been delayed while the defendant appeals to the Supreme Court. There is another criminal case of electoral interference, for trying to reverse the electoral result in Georgia, but it has been complicated, to the satisfaction of her lawyers, by extrajudicial issues (the prosecutor’s affair with the special prosecutor that she hired for the case ).

The delay in case of Stormy Daniels It would fill the former president with enthusiasm, whose main strategy to face his multiple judicial fronts consists precisely of that, in delaying the processes as much as possible. If he were elected to a second term in November, the criminal cases once morest him would be paralyzed until he leaves office, although the one in Manhattan is statewide, unlike those in Georgia, Washington and Florida.

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