NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump will stand trial April 15 on charges related to hush money payments meant to cover up claims of marital infidelity, a New York judge ruled Monday, tersely swatting aside defense claims of prosecutorial misconduct.
Assuming the date holds, the decision from Judge Juan M. Merchan ensures that the prosecution will be the first of four criminal cases against Trump to reach trial, with the presumptive Republican nominee facing a jury in the city where he built a business empire decades ago and gained celebrity status.
The trial had been in limbo after a last-minute document dump caused a postponement of the original date. In setting jury selection for April 15, Merchan bristled at what he suggested were baseless claims by Trump’s lawyers that prosecutors intentionally failed to pursue tens of thousands of pages of records from a federal probe covering the same issues.
Prosecutors said only a handful of those newly released records were relevant to the case. Defense lawyers contended thousands of pages are potentially important and require painstaking review. Merchan, who earlier this month postponed the trial until at least mid-April, told defense lawyers that they should have acted sooner if they believed they didn’t have all the records they felt they were entitled to.
Trump wasn’t harmed by the recent provision of material and the prosecutors who turned it over were not at fault, Merchan said.
Outside the courtroom, Trump complained about the ruling, characterizing the case — as he has done repeatedly — as an act of “election interference.”
“This is a case that could have been brought three and a half years ago. And now they’re fighting over days because they want to try and do it during the election. This is election interference. That’s all it is. Election interference and it’s a disgrace,” the former president said.
The hearing took place on the same day that a New York appeals court granted Trump a dose of good news by agreeing to hold off collection of his $454 million civil fraud judgment — if he puts up $175 million within 10 days.
The two developments underscored the extent to which New York, the city where Trump was born and raised, has emerged as an epicenter of his criminal and civil jeopardy.
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