NEW YORK — A New York judge scheduled former President Trump’s hush money trial to begin April 15, enabling his first criminal trial to still take place this spring after a last-minute delay.
Trump, who has looked to postpone all four of his criminal cases, requested the judge punt the trial for at least two additional months over new documents that were recently turned over.
Judge Juan Merchan rejected that request during a hearing on Monday, ruling in favor of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg (D) by refusing to push the trial deeper into the campaign season.
Merchan also rejected Trump’s assertion that Bragg’s office has committed discovery violations.
“The court finds that the people have complied and continue to comply with their discovery obligations,” Merchan ruled.
Trump’s trial had long been scheduled to begin on Monday, but Merchan delayed it until mid-April after a last-minute curveball led Bragg’s office to consent to a one-month postponement.
The scheduling hiccup came after the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York turned over more than 100,000 pages of records in recent weeks. The parties have traded blame for why the documents did not come to light earlier.
Merchan’s announcement that he would not delay the trial further and begin jury selection on April 15 came during a Monday hearing to sort out the recent document kerfuffle.
Bragg charged Trump last year with 34 counts of falsifying business records over reimbursements to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, who paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 just before the 2016 election to stay quiet about an alleged affair with Trump.
Trump, who acknowledges the reimbursements but denies the affair, pleaded not guilty.
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