A judge on Wednesday rejected Donald Trump’s bid to delay his April 15 hush money criminal trial until the Supreme Court rules on presidential immunity claims he raised in another of his criminal cases — spurning another of the former president’s ploys to put off the historic trial. Several more are pending.
Manhattan Judge Juan M. Merchan declared the request untimely, ruling that Trump’s lawyers had “myriad opportunities” to raise the immunity issue before they finally did so last month, well after a deadline for pretrial motions had already passed.
The timing of the defense’s March 7 filing “raises real questions about the sincerity and actual purpose of the motion,” Merchan wrote in a six-page decision.
So now he’s claiming that he had presidential immunity before he was president too?
He’s claiming it makes him immune forever and always.
One theory I heard was ultimately he’d argue that the conduct he’s charged for continued once he was in office (e.g. he cut Michael Cohen a check while he was President) therefore his “absolute presidential immunity” should kick in and cover everything.
It’s horseshit, just like the immunity claim itself, but really it’s only meant as a delay tactic. Since it failed watch out for more attempts at delay. Either appealing the denial of this motion or something like a motion to withdraw as counsel from his lawyers after he fires them and tries to ask for 6 months delay to get new counsel up to speed.