Three days before Donald Trump’s criminal trial was set to begin, the judge overseeing the case on Friday denied the former president’s request to adjourn the case due to the enormous pretrial publicity.
“’The situation in which the defendant currently finds himself is not new to him and is, at least in part, his own fault,’ Judge Juan Merchan wrote in a four-page order.
“The remedy requested by the defendant is an indefinite adjournment. This is not tenable,” the judge wrote.
Merchan said any concerns about a juror’s potential exposure to news about the case can be addressed through a rigorous jury selection process.
“The defendant appears to believe that his situation and this case are unique and that pretrial publicity will never diminish. However, this view does not correspond to reality,” Merchan wrote.
On Friday, Trump’s lawyers separately requested a slight change to the jury selection process so they could have greater latitude to ask questions about political bias. They also want to know how many potential jurors say they cannot be fair or impartial to Trump.
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“These numbers are extremely significant in assessing the constitutional and statutory adequacy of the jury selection process,” the defense attorneys wrote.
Former President Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidate, speaks at a Get Out The Vote rally in Conway, South Carolina, February 10, 2024.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP, FILE
Trump’s lawyers tried to move the case from Manhattan to a county where they said fewer potential jurors would have an anti-Trump leaning.
Last April, Trump pleaded not guilty to a 34-count indictment accusing him of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment that his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, had paid adult film actress Stormy Daniels just days before the 2016 presidential election.
Jury selection for the trial is expected to begin Monday in New York. The former president has denied any wrongdoing.
ABC News
