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NY Post
New York Post
5 Apr 2023


NextImg:Trial? Dismissal? What happens next for Donald Trump after charges

Donald Trump’s day in court was an unprecedented global spectacle that saw him become the first ever American president to be hit with criminal charges.

The 76-year-old ex-president went before a Manhattan Supreme Court judge Tuesday to plead not guilty to 34 felony charges tied to “hush money” payments made at the height of his 2016 presidential campaign.

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The prospect of a trial could be more than a year away and raises the possibility that Trump may face a Manhattan jury at the same time he is seeking to be reelected to the White House.

So what comes next for the 45th president and his legal team?

The charges against Trump were the culmination of a yearslong probe by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.

In the wake of Trump’s surrender and arraignment, Manhattan prosecutors now have to turn over any evidence they obtained during their investigation to defense lawyers — a standard step known as the discovery process.

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Donald Trump went before a Manhattan Supreme Court judge Tuesday to plead not guilty to 34 felony charges tied to “hush money” payments made in 2016.
POOL/AFP via Getty Images

Prosecutors said they would be able to start turning over discovery materials within a week of a protective order being put in place that would ban the ex-prez from posting any sensitive discovery materials on social media.

The DA’s office added to the judge it expects to hand over the “vast majority” of documents to Trump’s lawyers within the sate’s legal limit of 65 days for “voluminous discovery materials.”

The evidence will almost certainly include key witness statements from porn star Stormy Daniels and Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen. It also will include the minutes from the grand jury convened by DA Alvin Bragg earlier this year to examine the allegations.

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Judge Juan Merchan declined to issue a gag order, or restrict the involved parties from publicly discussing the case, citing Trump’s First Amendment rights. But the judge acknowledged prosecutors and defense lawyers were currently hashing out a protective order.

The order, prosecutors say, would aim at banning Trump from providing the discovery material to any third party and from posting it on social media.

Trump also would presumably be required to review any discovery material in the presence of his lawyers — and would be prevented from taking physical copies of such documents with him. 

The planned directive stems from a slew of social-media posts Trump made ahead of his arraignment — including an image that prosecutors say showed Trump wielding a baseball bat at Bragg’s head.

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It wasn’t immediately clear when the order would be agreed upon.

Judge Juan Merchan court sketch
Judge Juan Merchan declined to issue a gag order in the case during Tuesday’s nearly hourlong arraignment hearing.
REUTERS

The judge set Trump’s next court date for Dec. 4 where the jurist will review all previously filed motions from the prosecution and defense.

Todd Blanche, one of Trump’s lawyers, asked the judge if Trump could skip the hearing because his arraignment appearance alone was “extraordinarily burdensome and expensive on the city.” 

“All of Lower Manhattan was shut down today,” Blanche noted Tuesday.

The judge denied the request, saying he expects “all other defendants to appear in court — even high profile defendants.”

No trial date has been set.

Prosecutors have requested the trial be held in January 2024, but Trump’s team argued during the arraignment that spring next year would be a more realistic time frame. Either way, those dates would come during the presidential campaign cycle for Trump, who has already thrown his hat in the ring.

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But one of Trump’s lawyers, Joe Tacopina, insisted Wednesday the case wouldn’t even make it to trial.

Trump entering court
The judge set Trump’s next court date for Dec. 4 and ordered him to be there — despite objections from his legal team.
AFP via Getty Images

“This case is going to fall on its merits, on legal challenges, well before we get to a jury, if we get to a jury,” he told NBC’s “Today.”

“There’s no crime at all — at all,” he added in a CBS interview, calling the indictment “vanilla.”

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“I mean, this is not a game,” Tacopina said. “You’re charging the [former] president of the United States with crimes, crimes that will never be sustained in a court of law because they don’t exist.”

Trump’s legal team has already repeatedly said it will aggressively fight the charges, but it is not clear how the lawyers plan to do so.

The former commander-in-chief has accused the DA of targeting him as part of a politically driven “witch hunt” — which could be seized on by Trump’s lawyers as they seek to have the charges thrown out.

Trump has also raged on social media that Merchan, the judge, previously treated his Trump Organization unfairly when he oversaw a criminal tax-fraud trial involving the business last year.

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As recently as Tuesday, Trump called for his case to be moved from the heavily Democratic Manhattan to Staten Island, which is more favorable to Republicans.

Trump’s lawyers would have to file a motion proving why Merchan is unqualified to handle the case — and it would likely be denied, given there is no basis for recusal, according to Marc Scholl, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney.

Any request to change the venue would likely also be nixed this far in advance of a trial, Scholl added.

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With Post wires