In a stunning first for American history, former US president Donald Trump will stand trial in New York next month, accused of orchestrating a hush-money scheme to silence a former lover.
The 77-year-old billionaire, who is eyeing a comeback to the White House, appeared in court on Thursday, desperately trying to get the trial thrown out or postponed.
But Judge Juan Merchan was unmoved by his pleas, saying that the trial’s schedule would not interfere with his presidential ambitions.
Mr Trump blasted the decision to start the trial on 25 March as a “disgrace”.
“Obviously I’m running for election again. How can you run for election and be sitting in a courthouse in Manhattan all day long?” he fumed outside the courtroom after Thursday morning’s hearing.
Mr Trump is widely expected to clinch the Republican nomination for president, and face off against President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in a bitter rematch in November. He still has to clear the state primaries to secure the nomination, with most of those votes held on 5 March, known as “Super Tuesday”.
Mr Trump’s lawyers had made similar arguments during the pre-trial hearing, but the New York state judge said they were baseless and that he would only delay for legal reasons.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg has slapped the former president with 34 counts of fraud, alleging Mr Trump cooked the books to conceal payments he made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels as legal fees.
Ms Daniels has claimed she was paid $130,000 (£103,000) in 2016 to keep quiet about having sex with the then-presidential candidate. Mr Trump denies they ever had an affair.
This is one of four criminal cases hanging over Mr Trump’s head.
The first step of the New York trial will be assembling a jury of 12 people.
Lawyers and the judge also debated on Thursday how to pick jurors for the unprecedented case, given Mr Trump’s global notoriety and the deep political rifts around him.
Lawyers from both sides will be able to veto people from sitting on the jury. Justice Merchan warned them that if they plan to strike possible jurors because they are Democrats or Republicans, then they are going to run out of people very fast.
Prosecutors said they want to probe some of the most divisive issues of the 2020 presidential election in a screening questionnaire for potential jurors, such as if they believe the election was rigged, if they believe in the QAnon conspiracy theory and if they have joined far-right militia groups or far-left groups like Antifa.
Prosecutors also want to broaden a question about which news media a potential juror watches to include right-wing pundits such as Sean Hannity, Alex Jones and Tucker Carlson.
The defence suggested asking jurors if they ever put a political bumper sticker on their car or candidate sign on their lawn.
There are also possible questions about whether a juror has read or listened to anything from the prosecution’s star witness, Mr Trump’s former lawyer, Michael Cohen, or if they have read Mr Trump’s book The Art of the Deal.
