Stormy Daniels Trial Is ‘Best-Case Scenario’ for Donald Trump: Analyst

Donald Trump should want his Manhattan hush money trial to start sooner rather than later, legal analyst Danny Cevallos said.

“It might be a best-case scenario for Donald Trump for the weakest to go to trial in 2024 before the election. And that, for me, of the four [cases against him] is unquestionably the New York criminal case,” Cevallos said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Friday.

The former president is facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the case, which concerns a hush money payment made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels before the 2016 election. Manhattan prosecutors allege that Trump was part of an illegal conspiracy to undermine the 2016 race by trying to suppress negative information, including the $130,000 that was paid to Daniels to keep an alleged affair with Trump secret. Trump has denied the affair and pleaded not guilty to all charges.

The trial in the Manhattan case is slated to begin March 25, three weeks after the trial in Trump’s federal election interference case is scheduled to start. If the proceedings go according to the proposed timeline, it would be the second criminal trial Trump faces. A federal trial in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case is set for May 20, and Fulton County, Georgia, prosecutors are hoping to start a trial on August 5 in the case involving 2020 election interference in that state.

Cevallos said Friday that the Manhattan case has not been talked about as much as the others because “it is not a strong case.” Noting that Mark Pomerantz, a former prosecutor on the case, has publicly stated his belief that Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg waited too long to indict Trump, Cevallos said, “A case like that, that even the prosecutors on the team are not sure about, that doesn’t seem to me the beyond-a-reasonable-doubt standard.”

Since it is the weakest of Trump’s four criminal cases, Cevallos said, the former president should want the Manhattan trial to proceed first so that he has a chance of acquittal, of which there’s “a good chance.”

Former federal prosecutor and elected state attorney Michael McAuliffe told Newsweek that although he agreed the Manhattan case was the least compelling of the four prosecutions, “it’s also arguably the most straightforward.”

He said a jury trial would require Trump to appear for the duration of the proceedings, which could hurt the GOP’s presidential front-runner even if he ends up being acquitted.

“He will have to sit in silence as evidence is introduced against him about trying to keep a porn star silent about an affair with him. That would be uncomfortable and compromising for almost anyone,” McAuliffe said.

“Possibly, Trump is the exception to that, but he won’t be portrayed in a positive light regardless of the result. And a felony conviction, even if regarding a less important matter, is still a felony conviction,” he said.

But McAuliffe also said that because there are a limited number of days before the 2024 election, it could be in Trump’s favor for the weakest criminal case to take up more of those dates and ultimately push off the more consequential cases.

Regardless, McAuliffe said it is unlikely the Manhattan case will go to trial before the federal election interference case, especially since Bragg has already said his prosecution should come after the two federal cases against Trump.

Even though Trump’s immunity claim in the federal election interference case is tied up in the courts, which could push the trial past its scheduled March 4 start date, Bragg has indicated he would be willing to delay his trial to give priority to special counsel Jack Smith’s case.