A delay in the former president’s impending Manhattan trial date was just the latest example of his ability to bend his busy court calendar in his favor.
NEW YORK TIMES
The schedule seemed stacked against Donald J. Trump: four criminal trials in four cities, all in the same year he is running for president.
But rather than doom Mr. Trump, the chaotic calendar might just save him.
Mr. Trump, who as president helped reshape the federal judiciary, has already persuaded the Supreme Court to delay his trial in Washington. His lawyers have buried judges in Florida and Georgia in enough legal motions and procedural complaints that his cases there have no set trial dates, either.
The case in Manhattan, where Mr. Trump is accused of covering up a sex scandal during and after the 2016 presidential campaign, was the only one not mired in potential postponements.
Until now.
On Friday, Justice Juan M. Merchan, who is overseeing the case, delayed the trial at least three weeks, until mid-April.
It was hardly the first case to be delayed during Mr. Trump’s recent run of legal problems — and that is no accident. As the former president attempts to push each of his trials until after the election, he is relying on his most battle-tested strategy: Seek every delay available within the law.
The postponement of the Manhattan trial — the first prosecution of a former American president — stems from the recent disclosure of more than 100,000 pages of investigative records that may have some bearing on the case. Citing the records, Mr. Trump’s lawyers sought a 90-day delay of the trial, while the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin L. Bragg, proposed a delay of up to 30 days.
The delay in Manhattan also came on the same day that Mr. Trump’s other state case — in Georgia, where he has been accused of tampering with the results of that state’s 2020 election results — had its own tumultuous development: One of the proceeding’s top prosecutors, who had a romantic relationship with the district attorney who filed the indictment, decided to step down after a judge decided that one of them had to go.
The day’s events showed that the cases, accusing Mr. Trump of a remarkable array of crimes, will slog on, even as the former president continues to drag his feet.
When facing legal woes, as he has for decades in civil courts, Mr. Trump seeks to manipulate the schedule. Whether or not the facts are in his favor, he plays a game of calendar calculus to pit one case against the other, in hopes of pushing them past the election.
If he wins, the cases would have to pause once he took office. It is longstanding policy that a sitting president cannot face trial on criminal charges.
