Well, folks, it looks like the trial of former President Donald Trump will go on as planned on April 25th. U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan shut down Trump’s plea for a delay, citing his lawyers’ “deluge” of excuses for why he needs more time.
Trump’s lawyers argued that the “prejudicial media coverage” and “unprecedented indictment and arraignment” will impair his ability to get a fair trial. Yeah, because we all know how easy it is to escape the media’s attention when you’re a former president. Good one, guys.
The ex-president has a history of trying to stall litigation proceedings with all sorts of tactics, including in the Carroll case that’s on the table now. E. Jean Carroll accused Trump of sexually assaulting her in the dressing room of upscale department store Bergdorf Goodman back in the mid-1990s.
Roberta Kaplan, Carroll’s attorney (and no relation to Judge Kaplan), fired back at Trump’s lawyers, saying their request for a delay was baseless. She pointed out that the Big Apple is a pretty substantial metropolis and that New Yorkers don’t take too kindly to anyone trying to muscle their way around our courts.
Kaplan also noted that Trump was behind the wheel when it came to drumming up much of the media attention he’s now blaming for the potential disadvantage to his case. After all, it was he who started hawking merch with a fake mug shot to mark his New York indictment.
Trump’s lawyers did admit that their client gets a lot of media coverage. They simply argued that the deluge of coverage about Carroll, combined with the media’s fixation on Trump’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels, would be too much for jurors to handle.
Trump, as you might recall, pleaded not guilty to 34 felony charges in April. Prosecutors alleged that he falsified business records to conceal the reimbursement payments of $130,000 to Michael Cohen, his ex-lawyer, who paid off Daniels before the 2016 election.
In the wake of media scrutiny on Trump and Daniels, E. Jean Carroll came forward publicly in 2019 and accused Trump of sexually assaulting her over 20 years ago. Trump was quick to cover his tracks, insulting and dismissing her in the media. Evidently, this move backfired on the former president, and he got slapped with a defamation lawsuit.
Later, in 2020, Carroll filed another lawsuit. In this one, she accused Trump of “forcibly raping and groping her” and spreading untruthful information to discredit her claims. Both lawsuits were on the docket to get started this April but will remain separate.
It’s anyone’s guess if Trump will take the stand for his trial or not. What’s clear, though, is that there’s a serious reckoning coming soon for this guy, and we’re all here for it. Oh, and let’s not forget that E. Jean Carroll isn’t the only woman out there who’s accused him of sexual misconduct. There are over a dozen others, lending more evidence that maybe, just maybe, Trump is not the stand-up guy he’s led us to believe. Shocking, I know!
Serious News: washingtonpost
