Donald Trump just took another ugly blow in his Manhattan criminal trial
If you’re a defendant and you’re trying to delay your criminal trial, the time to make that happen is early on, before the calendar gets locked in. But once a judge sets a firm trial date, it’s locked in, and there’s basically nothing you can do to delay the trial. Donald Trump is now finding this out the hard way.
Once Judge Merchan officially set Trump’s New York criminal trial for April 15th, that date wasn’t going to change. Trump’s only way to delay this trial was to keep a firm date from getting locked in to begin with. But Trump has missed his opportunity.
Last week Trump asked that the trial be dismissed for some silly reason. The judge told him no, and the trial remained on track for April 15th. Then Trump asked the appeals court to delay his trial for some other silly reason. Today the appeals court promptly told Trump no, and the trial remains on track for April 15th.
So why are Trump’s attorneys even wasting their time making these kinds of last ditch filings? Because there’s nothing else for them to do. If their goal was to delay the trial past the election, they’ve failed rather miserably. They have no viable tricks for trying to delay the trial. So instead they’re doing what desperate people do once they realize they’re going to lose: they’re trying things that they know won’t work, because the alternative is to sit on their hands and do nothing. Either way, the trial is starting on time.
