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Trump Criminal Trial 'Full Steam Ahead' After Motion Denied

Trump Criminal Trial 'Full Steam Ahead' After Motion Denied

New York State Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan has denied Donald Trump’s “last-ditch bid” to delay trial in District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s 34 count criminal felony case alleging the ex-president falsified business records to hide what some have called “hush money” in an effort to protect his campaign in the 2016 election.

Trump had requested the trial be delayed until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on his presidential immunity claim, but Judge Merchan told Trump’s attorneys they waited too long to make the request, and denied it in full as “untimely.”

“This Court finds that Defendant had myriad opportunities to raise the claim of presidential immunity well before March 7, 2024,” Merchan wrote.

Legal experts praised Merchan’s ruling.

“This case is going to trial in 12 days. Trump needs to get ready to face it,” wrote national security attorney Bradley Moss.

“Criminal accountability in NY is nigh,” said professor of law, MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst, and former FBI General Counsel Andrew Weissmann. “The 4/15 NY criminal trial is going forward, so Donald needs to fasten his seat belt — it’s taking off.”

“Another day, another one of Trump’s motions to dismiss has been denied. His New York criminal trial is moving full steam ahead,” noted attorney Aaron Parnas.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump Again Attacks Judge Merchan's Daughter -- This Time By Name

Trump Again Attacks Judge Merchan's Daughter -- This Time By Name

New York Supreme Court acting justice Juan Merchan may have prevented former President Donald Trump from attacking witnesses with his gag order, but Trump is still continuing his attacks on the judge and his daughter, Loren, unabated.

In a Thursday post to his Truth Social account — which is followed by roughly 7 million of the ex-president's most devoted supporters — the 45th president of the United States mentioned the judge's daughter by name in an angry screed calling for Merchan to be removed from the Manhattan hush money case.

"Judge Juan Merchan is totally compromised, and should be removed from this TRUMP Non-Case immediately. His Daughter, Loren, is a Rabid Trump Hater, who has admitted to having conversations with her father about me, and yet he gagged me," Trump wrote. "She works for Crooked Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, and other Radical Leftists who Campaign on 'Getting Trump,' and fundraise off the 'Biden Indictments' - including this Witch Hunt, which her father 'presides' over."

The ex-president's attacks Loren Merchan are likely due to her work as a political consultant. Her firm, Authentic Campaigns, has performed services for various high-profile Democratic clients including the Biden-Harris campaign. The company's website also features a testimonial from Schiff.

However, Trump's suggestion that Loren Merchan's political work is playing a role in how her father handles cases in his courtroom is unproven, as is his argument that she currently works for Biden. Earlier this week, NBC News reported that "There’s no available evidence to suggest that Merchan’s daughter has done any subsequent work for Biden and no evidence to suggest that she ‘now’ works for a Biden political operation."

Another major sticking point for Trump in his attacks on Merchan's daughter revolve around an account on X/Twitter with the handle @LorenM426, whose profile avatar is a photo of Trump behind prison bars. However, the Hill reported that Loren Merchan deleted the account more than a year ago. The New York Office of Court Administration (OCA) stated that the account has a different owner.

"It is not linked to her email address, nor has she posted under that screenname since she deleted the account," OCA spokesperson Al Baker said. “Rather, it represents the reconstitution, last April, and manipulation of an account she long ago abandoned.”

Judge Merchan is overseeing Trump's first scheduled criminal trial, in which the former president is defending himself against 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg aims to prove to the jury that the $130,000 hush money payment to adult film star and director Stormy Daniels was an illegal campaign expenditure, as the money was intended to buy her silence in advance of the 2016 presidential election.

While the trial was intiially planned to begin on March 25, the jury selection process was moved to April, after a last-minute document dump from the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York (SDNY). In January, Trump requested records from the SDNY pertaining to its prosecution of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 for his role in the hush money scheme, as well as for tax evasion. SDNY released more than 200,000 pages of documents in relation to Trump's request, prompting his attorneys to request a 90-day delay in proceedings. Bragg countered with a 30-day delay. Merchan ruled that the trial would instead start on April 15.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

In New York Criminal Trial, Trump Attacks Judge Merchan -- And His Daughter

In New York Criminal Trial, Trump Attacks Judge Merchan -- And His Daughter

Donald Trump blasted the judge overseeing his first criminal trial and singled out his daughter for an attack.

The former president lashed out Tuesday morning after New York Supreme Court justice Juan Merchan refused to further delay his trial in the hush money case involving porn actress Stormy Daniels and scheduled jury selection to begin April 15, and Trump repeated his claims that the prosecution was politically motivated.

"Judge Juan Merchan, a very distinguished looking man, is nevertheless a true and certified Trump Hater who suffers from a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome," Trump posted on Truth Social. "In other words, he hates me!"

The ex-president and his sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump have attacked Merchan's adult daughter, who served as director of digital persuasion for Kamala Harris' 2020 presidential campaign and worked indirectly for the Biden-Harris 2020 presidential campaign through a communications firm that contracts with progressive campaigns.

"His daughter is a senior executive at a Super Liberal Democrat firm that works for Adam 'Shifty' Schiff, the Democrat National Committee, (Dem)Senate Majority PAC, and even Crooked Joe Biden," Trump posted.

The former president's lawyers had asked Merchan to recuse himself, but a New York advisory committee on judicial ethic concluded that that his impartiality could not "reasonably be questioned" based on his daughter's position or a $15 donation he made to the Biden-Harris campaign.

Trump then went after Merchan for sentencing his longtime accountant Allen Weisselberg to five months in jail after he pleaded guilty to 15 counts of tax fraud, and the judge will sentence him again April 10 after he pleaded guilty to perjuring himself in testimony in the former president's civil fraud trial.

"He was recently the judge on an unrelated trial of a long term employee, elderly and not in good health.," Trump posted. "This judge treated him viciously, telling him either you cooperate or I’m putting you in jail for 15 years. He pled, and went to jail for very minor offenses, highly unusual, served 4 months in Rikers, and now they are after him again, this time for allegedly lying (doesn’t look like a lie to me!), and they threatened him again with 15 years if he doesn’t say something bad about 'TRUMP.' He is devastated and scared!"

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Rising 'National Security' Concerns Over Shadowy Entity Behind Trump Bond

Rising 'National Security' Concerns Over Shadowy Entity Behind Trump Bond

After US District Judge Lewis F. Kaplan denied his petition for a stay, former President Donald Trump finally posted a $91.6 million bond for his appeal of writer E. Jean Carroll's judgment on Friday.

That $91.63 million includes the full $83.3 million judgment, along with a nine percent statutory interest the State of New York tacks onto surety bonds. That money has been set aside in a court-managed account to be paid to Carroll in the event Trump loses his appeal. The ex-president's bond was guaranteed by the Federal Insurance Company — a New York-based subsidiary of the company Chubb Group LLC, which is headquartered in Switzerland. In 2018, Chubb CEO Evan Greenberg served on a trade advisory committee in the Trump White House. The Washington Post reported that "it was not clear from court records what collateral Trump presented to obtain the bond from Chubb."

The environmental nonprofit group Rainforest Action Network (RAN) noted on its website that Chubb does business around the world, including with several major American adversaries. The group pointed out that Chubb is "insuring oil and gas extraction and transport in Russia, fueling Russia’s war on Ukraine."

"In fact, Chubb called Russian oil and gas 'one of the most promising activities' of its Russian operations,'" RAN wrote. "The insurer was recently backing Nord Stream 2, a massive, controversial natural gas pipeline built by Gazprom, the world’s largest producer of gas and a majority Russian state-owned fossil fuel company (which also happens to be funded by JPMorgan Chase)."

Former federal prosecutor Andrew Weissmann tweeted Friday that while Trump is "$90M down, $400M to go," the details of the bond agreement are murky and that "the public has no idea who may have actually put up the money or provided a guaranty to support the bond."

"But one thing’s sure: Trump is beholden to someone for a lot of money," Weissmann wrote.

In response to Weissmann's tweet, attorney and journalist Daniel Miller expressed concern, opining that the bond guarantee was a "matter of national security," adding "the public has to know this information before voting in November."

Notably, the Post reported Chubb's CEO was vocal in his disdain for the January 6, 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol, condemning "the violence and display of demagoguery we witnessed in our nation’s capital."

"We should all hope for a new era of respect and decency as we meet the many common challenges facing our nation," Greenberg said the day after the capitol riot.

Trump has yet to post his bond for appealing the $454 million civil judgment that he's been ordered to pay to the State of New York after losing his civil fraud case. Earlier this week, CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin said Trump may seek out foreign help to pay that judgment, particularly since American financial institutions may hesitate to give a loan to an adjudicated fraudster. In February, a judge denied Trump's request to pay a $100 million bond, suggesting Trump may not have the cash to cover the judgment on his own despite his multibillion-dollar net worth.

"What does that mean if a candidate for president is is on the hook for multiple, multiple millions of dollars to a foreign source? Because that, it seems to me, is the most likely source," Toobin said.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.