Trump can pay smaller bond in civil fraud case as judge sets April date for hush money trial

Judge Juan Merchan is in the courtroom and the hearing has begun.

Former President Donald Trump is sitting at the defense table in between his attorneys Susan Necheles and Emil Bove, with his hands folded and had two stacks of papers in front of him as he waited for the hearing to start.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg is seated in the second row behind the prosecution table.

The judge began by saying that Trump is seeking to dismiss the trial or preclude testimony from Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels and delay the trial at least 90 days, accusing the district attorney of "engaging in widespread conduct."

Merchan is reading highlights from the Trump filing, including accusations that the DA's office is trying to interfere in the 2024 election and engage in a strategy to "hide the truth."

Former President Donald Trump is at a New York criminal court for a pre-trial hearing in his hush money criminal case.

The hearing is to discuss discovery issues that led to the delay of Trump’s New York criminal trial until at least April. Trump's lawyers have asked to further delay or dismiss the case. As he entered the hearing, Trump called the case a "hoax."

Cameras are allowed in the hallway of the courthouse, and Trump has frequently taken the opportunity to speak to media around his appearances. He's expected to deliver remarks after the court hearing.

Another looming legal threat: The hearing also comes on the same day he is staring down a deadline to secure a bond while he appeals Judge Arthur Engoron’s $464 million civil fraud decision against him, his adult sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, and the Trump Organization. Trump has until Monday to post bond.

If he can’t somehow find the money by Monday, the New York attorney general may begin the process of seizing some of Trump’s assets to finance his obligation to the state. Trump has appealed the ruling.

Former President Donald Trump is charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records, stemming from reimbursements made to Trump’s former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen for hush money payments he made before the 2016 election to an adult film star alleging an affair with Trump. The former president has pleaded not guilty and denied the affair with Stormy Daniels.

Trump was part of an unlawful plan to suppress negative information, including an illegal payment of $130,000 that was ordered by the defendant to suppress the negative information that would hurt his campaign, prosecutors alleged.

Trump “repeatedly and fraudulently falsified New York business records to conceal criminal conduct that hid damaging information from the voting public during the 2016 presidential election,” according to the charging documents.

Donald Trump will face a seasoned judge at the hearing today who is no stranger to the former president’s orbit. Judge Juan Merchan has sentenced Trump’s close confidant Allen Weisselberg to prison, presided over the Trump Organization tax fraud trial and overseen former adviser Steve Bannon’s criminal fraud case.

Merchan has been described by observers as a “tough” judge, yet one who is fair, no matter who is before him. Merchan launched his legal career in 1994 when he started off as an assistant district attorney in the trial division in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Several years later, he moved on to the state attorney general’s office, where he worked on cases in Long Island.

In 2006, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, then a Republican, appointed Merchan to Family Court in the Bronx, and Democratic Gov. David Paterson appointed him to the New York State Court of Claims in 2009, the same year he began serving as an acting New York Supreme Court Judge.

Born in Bogotá, Colombia, Merchan emigrated to the United States at the age of 6 and grew up in the New York City neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens, according to a New York Times profile of the judge. He was the first in his family to go to college.

Merchan initially studied business at Baruch College in New York before he dropped out of school to go work only to return several years later to finish school so that he could get his law degree, the Times reported. He eventually received his law degree from Hofstra University.

Donald Trump’s tumultuous life has been rocked by bankruptcies, personal scandals, impeachments and election wins and losses, but nothing quite compares to the personal and financial crisis facing the once-and-possibly future president this week.

Trump is struggling to post a bond worth around half a billion dollars on Monday to stop the state of New York from targeting his assets following a huge fraud judgment. The situation he finds himself in threatens the empire that conjured the tycoon’s aura and assumptions of massive wealth that are critical to his self-identity and political brand.

But exemplifying the roller-coaster nature of his public career, Trump is also soon poised for a massive financial windfall. A deal to take his media company public promises to add about $3 billion to his net wealth – even if it won’t ease his cash crunch in the short term.

That’s not all. Trump may find out Monday when he will become the first ex-president to go on trial, as the judge hearing a Manhattan hush money case holds a critical hearing. The case, related to payment to an adult film star ahead of the 2016 election, could lead to Trump being a convicted felon by November’s election.

Read the full analysis.

Donald Trump’s first criminal trial was supposed to begin Monday. Instead, his lawyers will get the chance to argue for a lengthy postponement and even a dismissal of the charges.

Judge Juan Merchan is holding a pre-trial hearing in New York on Monday to discuss the discovery issues that led to the delay of the trial on charges brought by the Manhattan district attorney related to hush money payments until at least the middle of next month.

Here’s what to know ahead of today's hearing:

Manhattan prosecutors say fewer than 270 documents recently turned over to Donald Trump by federal authorities are new and relevant to the criminal case involving hush money payments and no further delay to the trial is warranted.

Prosecutors with the Manhattan district attorney’s office also told the judge that no sanctions were warranted and placed the blame on Trump’s lawyers for the late disclosure of records from the US attorney’s office for the Southern District of New York.

Trump asked Judge Juan Merchan to dismiss the indictment and delay the trial for 90 days, alleging prosecutors withheld information from them involving the federal prosecution of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer and a key witness for the state.

In a series of filings Thursday, the district attorney’s office accused Trump’s lawyers of trying to allege a “grab-bag of meritless discovery arguments in the latest of a long series of attempts to evade responsibility for the conduct charged in the indictment.”

Adult film actress Stormy Daniels said she was afraid for her life after her secret hush money deal with Donald Trump exploded onto the public stage in 2018 while he was president.

Daniels said she agreed to accept the $130,000 hush money payment just days before the 2016 presidential election to keep her one-night stand with Trump in 2006 from becoming public to protect her husband and daughter, and so “that there would be a paper trail and money trail linking me to Donald Trump so that he could not have me killed.”

The documentary is an inside look at Daniels’ life navigating the roller coaster that followed the public revealing of the hush money payment that ultimately landed Trump’s former attorney Michael Cohen in federal prison for breaking campaign finance laws. Trump was charged with falsifying business records for allegedly covering up the reimbursement of those payments to influence the election. Trump has pleaded not guilty and denies the affair.

Blame-shifting has played out in public court filings between attorneys for Donald Trump and the state after the Department of Justice turned over tens of thousands of documents this month.

The US attorney’s office in Manhattan amassed information about the hush money scheme when it built a case years ago against Trump’s former fixer, Michael Cohen. His 2018 guilty plea on charges related to the hush money transactions and other unrelated crimes sparked the state investigation into Trump’s role in the scheme.

Prosecutors said they properly requested and gave Trump any required information produced by the US attorney’s office last year, blaming the late record production on Trump’s lawyers who they say waited to subpoena the information until mid-January.

Attorneys for Trump, however, say they didn’t force federal prosecutors with a subpoena but have received the new information in response to a “straightforward request” to the US attorney’s office. The fact that the US attorney’s office produced the documents “without any enforceable compulsory process from the defense, is strong evidence that the People failed in their obligation to ‘make a diligent, good faith effort to ascertain the existence of material or information discoverable,’” a letter filed by Trump's team said.

District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office maintains they properly turned over all case material to Trump’s lawyers and did not violate any procedural requirements to warrant a dismissal of the case. The US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has declined to comment on the matter.

Read more about what both sides are saying about the documents.