Former President Donald Trump is likely preparing to be in “the last position he wants” legally, according to legal analyst Harry Litman.
New York State Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, who is presiding over Trump’s hush-money criminal case, denied a request by the former president’s legal team to further delay or dismiss the case in a hearing on Monday, scheduling the trial to begin on April 15.
During the same hearing, Merchan also admonished Trump lawyer Todd Blanche for accusing Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office of committing “prosecutorial misconduct” without being able to cite a single case in support of the allegation.
Trump’s losing streak in the case continued on Tuesday, when Merchan hit the ex-president with a limited gag order barring him from making statements about prosecutors, district attorney staff members, and potential witnesses and jurors in the case.
Andrea Renault/Star Max/GC Images
Litman, former federal prosecutor, argued in an opinion article published by The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday that Merchan was “likely only to get stricter once a jury is in place, at which point rash accusations could corrupt the proceedings.”
“Trump has been approaching pretrial appearances as political opportunities to vilify the prosecution,” Litman wrote. “But with an actual jury trial now on the horizon, presided over by a judge whose patience he has exhausted, he will be forced to base his defense on evidence.”
“And as in all his criminal trials, that is the last position he wants to be in,” he added.
Newsweek reached out for comment to Trump’s office via email on Wednesday.
Trump’s estranged niece Mary Trump, who has become one of the ex-president’s fiercest critics in recent years, argued this week that Merchan’s apparent determination to not allow any further delays in the trial was “Donald’s worst nightmare.”
Litman highlighted his prediction about Merchan becoming more strict with gag orders in a post to X, formerly Twitter, on Wednesday morning, just after the former president tempted fate by attacking Merchan and his daughter in a Truth Social post.
Trump accused Merchan of “suffering from an acute case of Trump Derangement Syndrome” in the post, while claiming that his daughter wants him “behind bars” and “represents Crooked Joe Biden” and “other Radical Liberals.”
Merchan issued the gag order on Tuesday shortly after Trump made a very similar Truth Social post about him and his daughter, who he said was “a senior executive at a Super Liberal Democrat firm.”
However, the gag order does not specifically bar the former president from attacking Merchan and his family, nor does it contain any restrictions that would prevent Trump from attacking Bragg.
Although Trump has vowed to appeal the April 15 trial date, the hush-money case will likely be the first of four criminal proceedings scheduled against the former president to actually go to trial. He is also facing felony charges in two federal cases and one case in Georgia.
Bragg’s office was the first to charge Trump, handing him 34 felony counts in which he’s accused of falsifying financial records that concealed payments made to adult-film actress Stephanie Clifford, also known as Stormy Daniels, during Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen previously served time in prison after admitting to paying Clifford $130,000 to keep quiet about an alleged affair with Trump, who denies that the affair took place.
The former president has pleaded not guilty to all of his criminal charges and claims that his legal troubles amount to political “persecution” and “election interference” as he seeks to regain the presidency in November’s election.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.