Donald Trump will stand trial on March 25 in the New York criminal case in which he is accused of falsifying business documents related to a silent payment to porn star Stormy Daniels, a judge ruled on Tuesday.
That trial is expected to begin midway through the presidential primary season and less than eight months before the 2024 White House election.
Trump, who pleaded not guilty, is currently seeking the Republican nomination for that race.
He is the first US president, former or not, to face criminal charges.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan announced the trial schedule as Trump appeared in court via video connection for a hearing in the case on Tuesday.
Merchan warned Trump that he could be disciplined if he violated an order that restricted his ability to release evidence and other material related to the criminal case.
Earlier this month, the judge issued this protective order after the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office raised what it called substantial concerns that Trump would “inappropriately” use the material or publish it. on social networks.
After the hearing, Trump posted a message on his social media site that criticized his trial schedule and Merchan.
“I just had a hearing in New York County Supreme Court where I believe my First Amendment rights, ‘free speech,’ were violated, and they imposed a trial date on us on the 25th March, right in the middle of the primary season,” Trump wrote. .
“Very unfair, but that’s exactly what the radical left Democrats wanted. It’s called ELECTORAL INTERFERENCE, and nothing like this has ever happened in our country before!” he wrote.
Merchan told prosecutors to file their pretrial motions by Aug. 29 and gave Trump’s attorneys until Oct. 10 to file their responses. Merchan said he would rule on the motions on Jan. 4, at a hearing where Trump is expected to appear in person.
One of Trump’s attorneys, Joseph Tacopina, declined to comment. A Trump campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Trump was indicted in late March by a grand jury, which charged him with 34 counts of falsifying business records.
Those filings misconstrued the nature of the reimbursement-related payments Trump and his company, the Trump Organization, made to his former attorney Michael Cohen after Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 shortly before the 2016 presidential election.
Daniels, in exchange for the money, agreed to keep quiet about his allegation of having had sex with Trump on one occasion a decade earlier, months after his wife, Melania, gave birth to Barron Trump. . Donald Trump denies having sex with the adult film star.
The indictment says those payments to Daniels and one by The National Enquirer editor to Playboy model Karen McDougal were part of an effort to prevent their allegations of sex dates with Trump from affecting his chances against Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Trump faces three other ongoing criminal investigations, all of which carry the risk of charges being brought against him.
In Georgia, the Fulton County District Attorney is considering seeking an indictment of Trump and others for their efforts to get state officials to effectively reverse President Joe Biden’s 2020 election victory in Georgia.
The US Department of Justice is separately investigating Trump for the attempt to reverse his loss to Biden in the National Electoral College results that year, and his conduct up to the day of the January 6, 2021 riot by his supporters in the United States. Capitol. The DOJ is also investigating Trump’s refusal to hand over hundreds of government documents, many of them classified, after he left the White House.
On May 9, a civil jury in a trial in Manhattan federal court found Trump responsible for sexually abusing writer E. Jean Carroll during an encounter at a New York City department store in the mid-1990s. , and defaming her when she went public in 2019 with her claim that Trump had raped her.
— Additional CNBC reports Kevin Breuninger
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