On Wednesday, Judge Juan Merchan parried the latest effort by Donald Trump — one of at least eight — to derail his rapidly approaching Manhattan trial for interfering with the 2016 election via an alleged cover-up of hush money payments. Trump’s increasingly frantic attempts to avoid it are the surest testament to the importance of this prosecution, and his latest failure reveals his desperation. As one of us explains in a forthcoming book, the former president knows he faces likely conviction.
Trump’s latest failed maneuver was an attempt to adjourn the trial by arguing that it could not proceed until the Supreme Court rules on whether former presidents enjoy absolute immunity. He contended that some of the evidence Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg plans to use implicates Trump’s official conduct as president — and if the Supreme Court rules that former presidents enjoy absolute immunity for official conduct, that evidence must be prohibited.
The judge’s rebuke of Trump and his counsel underscored the baselessness of Trump’s stalling tactics.
Even if absolute presidential immunity existed — which, as we’ve previously explained, it doesn’t — Merchan rightly recognized that Trump’s motion was too little, too late. As an initial matter, Merchan noted, Trump filed his request to adjourn the trial months after “the 45-day period [after arraignment and before commencement of trial] provided by statute.” New York courts have discretion to vary that stricture. But Trump offered little in the way of justification for his tardiness. As Merchan pointed out, Trump was long ago “well aware that the defense of presidential immunity, even if unsuccessful, might be available to him.” There was absolutely no reason Trump could not have at least tried to bring it up more promptly.
Merchan condemned the obvious dilatory intention behind Trump’s motion — noting that the “fact that the Defendant waited a mere 17 days prior to the…
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