United States – On Thursday, prosecutors accused Donald Trump of going so far as to make some outlandish allegations against them about the timing of the release of documents with a possibility of showing evidence relating to his hush money criminal case before the trial.
The trial was supposed to start on March 25. Trump’s legal woes stem from his desire to reclaim the Oval Office, a crime he has pleaded non-responsible to 34 counts of falsifying business records, aimed at covering up the USD 130,000 hush money payment granted by his ex-attorney and friend Michael Cohen to porn star Stormy Daniels prior to the 2016 presidential election, as reported by Reuters.
Trial Postponed
However, Judge Juan Merchan postponed the trial on February 24 to sometime in mid-April, which must have given Trump more time to review the documents that were presented by the US Attorney’s office in Manhattan this month, and they responded to the January subpoena of defense.
Ongoing Legal Battle
The judge will then hold a hearing on March 25 on the former President’s motions for dismissal of the case or a 90-day extension. In addition to retaliating against the office of the Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, which Bragg has brought the case from, for supposedly trying to bury the information that can call into question Cohen’s credibility.
In a court filing filed on Thursday, Bragg’s office said the new information brought in most of the time did not pertain to the case at hand or was duplicates of what Trump already had. It also stated that it had continued doggedly to give the former President the evidence.
“Defendant has reacted to (federal prosecutors’) disclosures … by leveling wild and untrue allegations of misconduct and malfeasance,” the state prosecutors wrote.
The Trump attorney, Todd Blanche, refused to comment on the issue.
Allegations
The prosecutors in New York State have claimed that Cohen paid Daniels (whose real name is Stephanie Clifford) a week before the 2016 elections for her silence and to keep her from revealing the alleged sexual encounter she had with Trump a decade before that. Trump denies the encounter. His attorneys have submitted as evidence that Cohen was instructed by the President to make the payment to spare the Trump family’s reputation and not to boost his presidential bid.
The previous US Attorney for the Southern District of New York investigated the payment but did not charge Trump with a crime. In 2018, Cohen admitted to a campaign finance violation related to the federal law on the payment.
The case is one of four criminal complaints filed against Trump by the prosecutors, challenging Democrat Joe Biden for the Presidency in the November 5, 2020, polls in the USA.
He has also pleaded not guilty in the other cases, which have arisen from situations involving attempts to reverse his 2020 defeat by Biden and his behavior after he left the White House, as reported by Reuters.
No previous US president has ever gone through any criminal trial.