Trump’s Legal Maneuvers: Delay Tactics Give Him Judicial Respite in Criminal Cases

An unexpected turn of the script, or of the calendar, in the busy year that Donald Trump faces could give the Republican candidate for re-election in November a judicial respite, as his lawyers have tried hard to play the dilatory card in most of the proceedings against him. former president (four criminal cases and a couple of them civil). Less than two weeks before the Republican sat on the bench in New York, on March 25, to answer to 34 criminal charges in the Stormy Daniels case (the payment of a bribe to a porn actress to buy her silence for an extramarital affair), the prosecutors who handled the case have proposed this Thursday a delay of up to 30 days, a surprising development in what is expected to be, if there are no further delays, the first criminal trial against a former president in the history of the United States.

The office of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg, who charged Trump with 34 crimes for covering up a sex scandal during and after the 2016 presidential campaign – the bribery was intended to prevent a scandal so as not to harm his candidacy – has explained that The delay would give the defense time to review a new batch of records, which it has recently received from federal prosecutors even though it has been seeking them for a year. Federal prosecutors investigated dark money payments at the origin of the case years ago.

The new evidence occupies tens of thousands of pages, which is why lawyers for Trump, the favorite candidate according to several polls, requested that the trial be delayed by 90 days. It is not the first time that the defense opts for a delaying maneuver to buy time and delay as much as possible the appearances in Trump’s dock – four criminal penalties, one for each of the charges, of which New York was going to be the first case-, but with the permission of the prosecutors now and their proposal to delay the start of the trial for a month, it seems that this time it will be more than likely that they will succeed. Curiously, the Manhattan case was until today the only one of the four criminal cases that had not suffered delays. Trump, who clinched the Republican presidential nomination for the third time this week, faces four criminal trials and several civil lawsuits.

In a document filed Thursday, lawyers for the Manhattan district attorney say they are prepared to begin the trial on March 25 as scheduled, but that they do not oppose a 30-day delay “out of an abundance of caution and to ensure “that the defendant has sufficient time to review the new materials.”

The trial arising from another criminal charge against Trump in Washington for conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 elections was also scheduled this month, but has been delayed while the defendant appeals to the Supreme Court.

The delay in the Stormy Daniels case would fill the former president with enthusiasm, whose main strategy to face his multiple judicial cases consists of precisely that, in delaying the process as much as possible. If he were elected for a second term in November, the criminal cases against him would be paralyzed until he leaves office, although the Manhattan case is state-level, like Georgia’s, not federal, like those in Washington and Florida.

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2024-03-14 21:31:24
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