These 'significant rulings' in Manhattan hush money case are bad news for Trump: legal expert

21 March 2024

Some of Donald Trump's critics are lamenting recent federal court decisions that are delaying the trials in special counsel Jack Smith's cases, from Judge Aileen Cannon's delays in the Mar-a-Lago documents prosecution to the U.S. Supreme Court agreeing to hear Trump's presidential immunity claims and doing so at a painfully slow pace.

Moreover, Trump's trial in Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s hush money case is now scheduled to begin in mid-April, not on Monday, March 25 as originally planned — a delay that Bragg himself agreed to based on discovery considerations.

But law professor Ray Brescia, in an op-ed published by the Daily Beast on March 21, argues that some recent "developments" in Bragg's case are very bad for Trump and will give the Manhattan DA "a stronger hand when the case ultimately does go to trial."

"Earlier this week, the judge presiding over the case, New York Supreme Court Justice Juan M. Merchan, made two significant rulings," explains Brescia, an associate dean at Albany Law School in Upstate New York. "The first of these decisions allows a number of witnesses to testify in the case, including Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen; former American Media CEO David Pecker; Dina Sajudin, a former Trump Tower doorman; and Karen McDougal, another individual who is alleged to have received similar payments to Daniels, also to cover up an alleged affair with the former president."

Brescia adds, "Their testimony will cover whether the alleged actions related to Stormy Daniels were part of a larger scheme to hide just these sorts of hush-money payments. But it's the second ruling that might be even more consequential."

The law professor goes on to explain why Merchan "swatted back one of the Trump team's main defenses," and it has to do with the "advice of counsel" argument.

"(Trump's) lawyers argued that because there was a lawyer in the room — or, as they phrased it, there was the 'presence of counsel' — during certain conversations about how to handle the Stormy Daniels matter and possibly others, Trump could argue that he should be allowed to say that the guidance he received in the room where it happened should absolve him from culpability," Brescia notes. "With a lawyer in the room, the advice just had to be legal! Well, Justice Merchan didn't buy it, refusing to endorse the Trump team's tactic."

Brescia continues, "He found that to 'allow said defense in this matter would effectively permit Defendant to invoke the defense he has declared he will not rely on' — that is, the formal defense of counsel — 'without the concomitant obligations that come with it.' He continued that such a result 'would undoubtedly confuse and mislead the jury,' and the court would not 'endorse such a tactic.' While the hush-money prosecution may have faced a temporary setback, these recent rulings likely mean the case is not just on track, but also, headed full-steam to trial in the near future."

Ray Brescia's full Daily Beast op-ed is available at this link (subscription required).

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