Former Pres. Donald Trump attends a hearing in his felony hush money case in Manhattan on Feb. 15, 2024.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The judge overseeing Donald Trump’s hush-money case lost patience with the ex-president’s lawyers Thursday.At a hearing, they repeatedly pushed to move the criminal trial, scheduled for March.Trump has large legal team handling his many, many cases.
Donald Trump may be a busy man.
So is the judge who will oversee his first criminal trial.
New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan visibly lost patience with Trump’s attorney Todd Blanche several times in a two-hour hearing Thursday morning, imploring the lawyer not to repeat arguments he had already made in earlier filings, and not to complain about the former president’s busy calendar.
“This should not happen in this country,” Blanche groused near the end of the hearing, saying that Trump should be on the presidential campaign trail instead of sitting in a Manhattan courtroom for two months.
“What’s your legal argument?” Merchan asked with an impatient tone. “Do you have a legal argument?”
“That is my legal argument,” Blanche retorted.
“That is not a legal argument. I’ll see you March 25,” Merchan snapped, before standing up and gliding to his chambers.
Thursday’s court hearing marked the final in-person conference between the lawyers and the judges ahead of next month’s trial, which is set to be the first of Trump’s criminal cases to go before a jury.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg alleges Trump illegally falsified business documents to cover up hush money payments to Stormy Daniels — who says she had an affair with Trump — ahead of the 2016 election.
Apart from the Manhattan case, Trump faces two other criminal trials over his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, in Georgia and Washington, DC. He also has a pending criminal case in Florida, over his taking government records with him when he left the office of the presidency.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office was the first to indict Trump, in April 2023. Merchan — who also oversaw a separate criminal case against the Trump Organization and ex-executive Allen Weisselberg — set the March trial date last May.
At the beginning of Thursday’s hearing, Merchan confirmed he would not dismiss the case or delay the trial, which is expected to last six weeks.
Former Pres. Donald Trump inside Manhattan Criminal Court for a hearing on his felony hush money case on Feb. 15, 2024.
Pool
Blanche griped about the decision, saying that “the landscape has changed” for Trump since he was indicted in three other criminal cases. US District Judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the DC-based case, had at one point scheduled a trial for March.
Merchan noted that the case was put on hold as Trump appealed the case over questions of whether he should be immune from prosecution, and “it would have been a waste of time” to discuss scheduling.
“You don’t have a trial date in Georgia, you don’t have a trial date in Florida,” Merchan said.
“Stop interrupting me,” Merchan said as Blanche began talking more about Trump’s busy schedule.
When Blanche tried to move back a different deadline before the trial, prosecutors didn’t want to allow any wiggle room.
“I think at some point we all have to realize that this case is moving to trial on March 25,” Joshua Steinglass, an attorney at the Manhattan district attorney’s office, said.
As Blanche tried to complain more about Trump’s dizzying caseload, Merchan once again shut him down.
“Mr. Blanche, please have a seat,” Merchan said curtly.
Amid his four criminal cases and numerous civil cases, Trump has effectively convened his own boutique law firm — paid for by political donors. His PACs are collectively paying for over 70 different lawyers and individual law firms, the majority of which are working on purely personal cases that have nothing to do with politics.
In addition to an overburdened legal calendar, Blanche complained that Trump should be able to travel around the country as he runs in the 2024 presidential race.
“President Trump says this all the time — and the media likes to make fun of it — but it is completely election interference to say you’re going to sit in this courtroom in Manhattan when there’s no reason for it,” Blanche said.
Blanche also complained about “the outsized and extraordinary media saturation that we are experiencing in this city right now” because, in January, a separate jury in a federal case ordered Trump to pay advice columnist E. Jean Carroll $83.3 million for defaming her when he called her a liar by denying he sexually assaulted her.
The Trump lawyer recommended holding another hearing in March and then talking about figuring out when the trial should take place.
“And you think the saturation will be gone by then?” Merchan asked skeptically.
“What if we have the same saturation in April? May?” he asked as Blanche tried to respond, before moving on.