The New York judge overseeing Donald Trump's trial in the Stormy Daniels case appears to be unwilling to delay those proceedings.
Justice Juan Merchan signaled in September that he would consider pushing back the trial date from March, which could potentially overlap with his federal trial in the D.C. election subversion case, but he ultimately rejected that and ordered both sides to meet in court a month before that after Trump's lawyers tried to take a peek at his private conversation with U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan, reported The Daily Beast.
“No further disclosure is required,” Merchan wrote in a Nov. 9 order.
Merchan also argued that Trump had so many legal problems that he might as well keep the original trial date rather than complicate matters further.
“Indeed, adjourning this trial prematurely can only serve to further muddy your client's already crowded trial calendar and possibly result in even further delay,” Merchan wrote.
That order came after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office argued that Trump was delaying trial dates after overbooking his top defense attorney attorney Todd Blanche, who's representing him in the hush money case, the election subversion case and the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case.
"[Trump] chose all of the eleven attorneys representing him in this case—not merely the attorney who is also engaged on the D.C. and Florida criminal cases,” argued assistant district attorney Caroline S. Williamson. “The ten other attorneys on the defense team include experienced and capable counsel, many of whom have represented defendant and the Trump Organization for years.”
Blanche and his team asked Merchan in August to move up the scheduled check-in much sooner than February, pointing to the private phone call the judge had with Chutkan over the summer and asking to know exactly what they discussed.
Prosecutors expressed surprise in a Nov. 2 filing that the issue had not come up sooner, because the federal judge brought that up in August when she noted that she's spoken briefly with Merchan to let him know she was considering a trial date that might overlap with his schedule, and a federal court transcript shows defense attorneys did not raise any objections.
