Donald Trump's legal team asked to postpone Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's trial. Bragg charged the former president with 34 counts of falsifying business records in the first degree in the case of alleged hush payments to the porn actress Stormy Daniels and the former Playboy model Karen McDougal.
According to a Fox News report, Trump's lawyers argue in their request that the trial should be postponed until the Supreme Court rules on the scope of presidential immunity.
"The Court should adjourn the trial pending Supreme Court review of the scope of the presidential immunity doctrine in Trump v. United States, which is scheduled to be argued before the Supreme Court on April 25, 2024," the motion reads, which also states that the trial should be postponed. "The motion states, adding that it should also be adjourned following an evidentiary hearing outside the presence of the jury, preclude evidence of President Trump's official acts at trial based on presidential immunity."
The Supreme Court is evaluating a petition from Trump's legal team regarding presidential immunity, stemming from special counsel Jack Smith's election interference case.
The trial on Prosecutor Bragg's indictment, scheduled for March 25, would begin with jury selection in New York City.
The motion comes after Judge Juan Merchán set a date to begin the trial and announced that it would last six weeks.
Previously, in February, the former president's lawyers attempted to dismiss the case entirely, but Judge Merchán rejected the request.
If it begins on the scheduled date, it would be the first criminal trial of the year against the former president.
According to Bragg's indictment, the former president "repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that concealed damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election."
However, Trump denied all charges, which date back to the 2016 presidential campaign.
Experts agree that this is a problematic case for Prosecutor Bragg, mainly because in 2019, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York chose not to charge Trump in connection with alleged payments made to Daniels and McDougal.
Likewise, in 2021, the Federal Election Commission also abandoned its investigation into the matter, so Bragg will have a tough job proving Trump's guilt. Trump has practically secured the Republican Party presidential nomination while facing various legal challenges throughout the country.
