Donald Trump's 'Worst Nightmare' Just Came True: Mary Trump

Donald Trump may be seeing his "worst nightmare" come true after the date was confirmed for his falsifying business records trial in New York, according to his niece.

Mary Trump, author, podcast host and frequent critic of her uncle, was reacting to Judge Juan Merchan setting an April 15 date for the trial where the former president has pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in relation to so-called "hush money" he arranged his former lawyer Michael Cohen to pay adult film star Stormy Daniels to keep an alleged affair she and Trump had a secret ahead of the 2016 election.

The trial was originally due to begin on March 25, but Merchan postponed it so both parties could sort through more than 100,000 pages of evidence that federal prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York had turned over just days before proceedings were scheduled to start.

During a Monday hearing, Trump's lawyers tried to argue that the New York trial should be delayed further, or thrown out altogether while accusing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office of misconduct for allegedly withholding documents. The claims were rejected by Merchan, who scolded Trump's legal team for not backing up their allegations with evidence.

In a lengthy post on X, formerly Twitter, Mary Trump said that the April 15 trial date means the presumptive 2024 Republican presidential candidate could be a convicted criminal before November's election, which could severely hinder his hopes of beating Joe Biden.

"Why did the New York election fraud case become Donald's worst nightmare?" she wrote. "Prosecutors have told the court they will need 15 to 17 days at minimum to present their case. Judge Merchan has already made it clear he won't tolerate any unnecessary delays.

"What this really means is that today's decision made it more likely that we will get a criminal verdict before the 2024 election, possibly with a few months to spare."

Mary Trump then cited a Morning Consult/Bloomberg poll from February which said that 53 percent of voters in the key swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin would not vote for Trump if he were a convicted criminal by the time of November's general election.

Mary Trump added that "while the media will tell you Donald won today" after a New York appeals court agreed on Monday to hold off collection of his $454 million civil fraud penalty if he puts down $175 million within 10 days instead, the former president "actually faces a better chance of being convicted for a crime and being sentenced to prison before the election.

"That, in turn, makes it significantly less likely for him to win in November," she wrote.

Trump's office has been contacted for comment via email.

In a press conference on Monday, Trump rejected the idea that a possible conviction in the falsifying business records trial could damage his White House hopes.

"Or it could also make me more popular, because the people know it's a scam," Trump said.

The former president also told a crowd of reporters ahead of Monday's hearing in the New York courtroom: "This is a witch hunt. This is a hoax."

Legal experts have said it is highly unlikely that Trump will go to jail if he is found guilty by a jury in the trial.

"If he's sentenced in guilty verdicts after a conviction, he could get home detention and an ankle monitor and maybe throw in some community service," attorney Gene Rossi, who previously represented one of Daniel's lawyers Keith Davidson, told Newsweek.

Michael McAuliffe, a former federal prosecutor, added it is not a "realistic possibility" that Trump will receive a custodial sentence if found guilty.