Donald Trump's legal team and Manhattan prosecutors spar over where he will stand trial
CTV
Ten months before Donald Trump is scheduled to stand trial in his historic New York City criminal case, Manhattan prosecutors are turning the former president's words against him in a tug of war over precisely where he will be tried.
Ten months before Donald Trump is scheduled to stand trial in his historic New York City criminal case, Manhattan prosecutors are turning the former president's words against him in a tug of war over precisely where he will be tried.
Trump's lawyers have spent weeks angling to have the hush money case moved to federal court. The Manhattan district attorney's office responded Tuesday that the case should remain in the state court where it originated, citing old Trump tweets that they say undermine his lawyers' jurisdictional challenge.
Trump, a Republican, pleaded not guilty in state court last month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to money paid to his former lawyer, Michael Cohen, for orchestrating hush money payments during the 2016 campaign to bury allegations of extramarital sexual encounters.
Prosecutors allege that Trump's company, the Trump Organization, falsely logged the Cohen payments as being for a legal retainer that didn't exist.
Trump, the leading contender for next year's Republican presidential nomination, is slated to go on trial in state court March 25, 2024, in the heat of the primaries.
Trump's lawyers argue he can't be tried in state court because some of the alleged conduct occurred in 2017 while he was president, including checks he purportedly wrote while sitting in the Oval Office. They argue the case belongs in federal court because it "involves important federal questions" including alleged violations of federal election law.
The DA's office, in its response, pointed to tweets from 2018 in which Trump said he was paying Cohen a monthly retainer and that Cohen was being reimbursed for a US$130,000 "private agreement" the lawyer made with porn actor Stormy Daniels to keep her from speaking about an alleged affair.
