In this week alone, Judge Juan Merchan has refused to sideline the case over alleged discovery violations, issued a gag order to the former president and even threatened his lawyers with criminal contempt, which all came in the form of separate court rulings.
Trump walked into Merchan’s courtroom this week hoping to receive a major delay — or the dismissal of all charges — due to thousands of pages of documents being newly turned over to the parties by federal prosecutors.
Even Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office, which has long resisted Trump’s delay efforts, consented to a 30-day postponement in the wake of the surprise twist. But Merchan refused to go that far.
Instead, he punted the schedule by just three weeks. At the hearing, the judge went on to clobber Trump attorney Todd Blanche over his allegations that the case should be further delayed or tossed entirely because the new documents revealed discovery violations.
“You’re literally accusing the Manhattan DA’s office and the people assigned to this case of prosecutorial misconduct and trying to make me complicit in it. And you don’t have a single cite to support that position?” Merchan, raising his voice, scolded Blanche.
Trump’s lawyers are left with a waning list of options to postpone the April 15 trial date, though they are still pressing ahead with multiple pending motions to do so despite the judge’s irritation.
The former president is charged in the case with 34 counts of falsifying business records connected to reimbursements to his then-fixer, Michael Cohen, who had paid porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 election to stay quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with Trump. Trump pleaded not guilty.
He has sought to delay all four of his criminal prosecutions so he can end or stall them if he first retakes the White House, and legal experts largely agree the hush money case may be the only of Trump’s indictments to reach a jury before November.
The Hill’s Zach Schonfeld has more here.
