Judge overseeing Trump Manhattan hush money case bucks his attempts to delay trial

Former President Donald Trump's unrelenting attempts to push back his trial dates appear to be backfiring, according to a November court order issued by New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan.

The former president is slated to go to trial in the spring in Manhattan, after District Attorney Alvin Bragg indicted him on charges relating to alleged hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 presidential election. While Trump has attempted to gum up the works in New York with various motions to postpone and delay proceedings, Justice Merchan isn't biting.

According to the Daily Beast, Merchan is insisting that both prosecutors and Trump's legal team "not engage or otherwise enter into any commitments, personal, professional or otherwise, that would prevent you from starting a trial on March 25, 2024, and completing it without interruption."

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Trump's March 25 trial date would be just three weeks after his trial in US District Court in Washington, DC. Special counsel Jack Smith indicted the 45th president of the United States on four felony counts relating to his alleged scheme to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and that trial is set to begin on March 4, 2024 — the day before the pivotal Super Tuesday primaries. This means Trump's calendar is effectively preventing him from hitting the campaign stump in perhaps the most critical stretch of the Republican primary.

"If Department of Justice special counsel Jack Smith succeeds in convicting the former president for defrauding the nation in an insidious attempt to stay in power after losing the election, that would mean that Trump is already a felon by the time he shows up in New York to face a jury for faking business records to cover up his Stormy Daniels sexual affair," the Beast's Jose Pagliery wrote.

Defense attorneys representing Trump have attempted to glean communications between Justice Merchan and Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the DC election interference case. While Chutkan indicated during pre-trial proceedings that she spoke with Merchan about a potential overlap between the two trials, Merchan rebuffed Trump's attempts to peer into the details of that conversation, writing "no further disclosure is required."

In addition to those two trials, Trump is also scheduled to appear in US District Court in the Southern District of Florida in May to defend himself from charges of allegedly mishandling classified documents, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis has requested an August 2024 trial date in the Georgia election interference RICO case.

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