Trump has one stall tactic left in hush money trial — but it's a 'long shot': CNN expert
April 04, 2024
Former President Donald Trump saw his "presidential immunity" argument that tied up the federal January 6 case soundly rejected by New York Judge Juan Merchan in the Manhattan hush money case, partly due to most of the alleged criminal conduct taking place when he wasn't even president, and partly due to failing to raise the issue in a timely procedural fashion.
Trump's only delay tactic left might be to try to ask a federal court to step in, suggested former federal prosecutor Elie Honig on CNN Thursday — but he'd be relying on a "long shot" argument that has already come up in federal court and already failed.
"There will be a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court on the issue of presidential immunity while, in theory, the New York criminal trial is going on," said anchor John Berman. "Is there any interplay between the two?"
"So that's interesting," Honig said. "There is a Supreme Court argument scheduled for April 25, which will be a trial day, according to the current schedule. Now, Donald Trump has said, we need to put this whole trial in Manhattan, hush money case on hold until we get a ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court on immunity, which will probably be in June or July."
But, he said, there are a number of issues with trying to get that delay until the Supreme Court hearing which, in any case, many legal experts believe he is going to lose.
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"Now, the first problem with that is it's not clear how Donald Trump would even really have an immunity argument in the hush money case, because almost all of the conduct there, the paying of the money to Stormy Daniels, happened before Donald Trump was president," said Honig, adding that it would rest entirely on the fact that "a couple of invoices" went out just after he took office.
"The other point, though, is this argument has already largely been raised by Donald Trump in this case. He tried to get his case moved over to federal court last summer, and as part of that, he said, I'm going to have an immunity argument, and the federal court rejected it."
"So it's a slightly different procedural context," Honig added. "Trump may well try again, but I think that's a long shot. Maybe a long shot's better than no shot for Trump."
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