Donald Trump is close to running out of time in his last-ditch bid to stave off the historic stigma of being the first former president to go on criminal trial next week.
The presumptive Republican nominee suffered yet another courtroom defeat on Monday in an attempt to delay his hush money trial and move it out of Manhattan. His latest legal defeat moves him – and the nation – to the threshold of a divisive spectacle that will further strain the justice and political systems and that could have an unpredictable impact on November’s election.
This case, which stems from payments to an adult film actress ahead of the 2016 election, is just one of four criminal cases against the former president. He has pleaded not guilty in all cases against him.
As his legal options narrow, Trump’s attacks on the judge in the New York case and those involved in his other looming trials and his wild claims that he’s the victim of political persecution are getting ever more extreme. In a dark Truth Social post over the weekend, Trump wondered how many “corrupt” judges he’d have to “endure before somebody steps in?” And in a fundraising email, the ex-president slammed his “sham trial” and warned “all hell will break loose” unless he got a new injection of financial support. Judge Juan Merchan, who will preside over the case, last week expanded a gag order on Trump after he named the judge’s daughter and attacked her on social media. Now the ex-president is complaining on his Truth Social network that Merchan is “taking away my First Amendment Rights.”
Trump’s escalating efforts to delegitimize the New York trial before it starts came as CNN obtained the jury questionnaire in the case, which reflects the unusual political context of this trial. Potential jurors will be quizzed about where they get their news, if…
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