Former President Donald Trump seems like he’s getting desperate, again.
His first criminal trial is scheduled to get moving this very month in New York City courts, putting Republicans’ presumptive presidential nominee on the hot seat for allegations of falsifying business records in connection to hush money from before the 2016 elections. And this week, Trump’s team raised arguments to New York appeals courts for putting the scheduled trial on hold, seeking a change of venue, meaning the trial’s location. A judge promptly denied the push for a delay in proceedings, keeping the trial on track, though there’s more with which courts in New York will grapple before the trial’s start.
“Trump’s bid for emergency relief to halt trial ~ for change of venue ~ is denied,” legal journalist Frank G. Runyeon wrote Monday afternoon on X, the social platform formerly called Twitter. He included an image of the document outlining the rejection. According to Runyeon, the prosecution had argued in the context of this specific dispute that Trump’s arguments on this front were too late, procedurally speaking.
It’s also a factor here that Trump himself has no doubt helped foster any animosity towards him among Manhattan residents that could come up (but be dealt with) in the context of jury selection. Trump and his circles target the city, characterizing it and the broader state as falling into some situation of decay and disrepair, on a regular basis.
Trump, meanwhile, is also challenging a gag order recently imposed — and then expanded — in the criminal case by presiding Judge Juan Merchan. The order blocks attacks from Trump on targets including witnesses, jurors (both prospective and actual), and others, like family members of the judge and others involved in the proceedings. Trump claimed he’s basically completely blocked from speaking out about key figures, though he can still discuss the judge and district attorney, among others.
