Another Trump delay bid fails as he fights gag order ahead of looming hush money trial

NEW YORK — A New York appeals court judge on Tuesday shot down Donald Trump’s request to delay his hush money trial while he fights a gag order preventing him from publicly attacking key players like Stormy Daniels and Michael Cohen — the latest blow to the former president’s multipronged effort to impede the case.

Associate Justice Cynthia Kern’s ruling denying Trump’s emergency request for a delay came after his lawyers argued he should be able to respond to Cohen and Daniels’ jabs against him on social media. Trump also wants to be able to detail why he thinks the presiding judge should recuse himself and to speculate about one of the lead prosecutors, who formerly worked for the Justice Department.

While Trump’s emergency request for a delay wasn’t granted, a full panel of appeals court judges will revisit it after receiving written arguments on Monday — the same day jury selection is slated to begin. They’ll also weigh his push to fight the gag order later this month.

As part of his delay efforts, Trump has been trying to get the case moved out of Manhattan, arguing the borough is too far left for him to get a fair trial. On Monday, a different appeals court judge rejected another emergency request to delay the trial while he makes that argument.

During arguments before the mid-level First Department appellate court earlier Tuesday, an attorney for the Manhattan district attorney’s office, Steven Wu, vehemently opposed Trump’s latest delay bid and argued that his relentless, vitriolic comments about those involved in the high-stakes case — calling them “thugs, losers, horse face” and “deranged psychopaths” — served only to chill witnesses.

“This is the very time when it is most important to ensure extrajudicial statements by the defendant don’t prejudice the trial,” Wu said, further arguing that the court should deny Trump’s efforts to stall proceedings.

Emil Bove, Trump’s appeal lawyer, said the gag order violated Trump’s free speech rights and that his inability to respond to attacks by Cohen and Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, had led to irreparable harm.

Merchan last month prohibited Trump from publicly remarking on anticipated witnesses, jurors and potential jurors, prosecutors and their relatives, citing his history of “threatening, inflammatory, denigrating” attacks on those connected to his criminal and civil cases. The judge later expanded the gag order to include his own relatives and those of Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg after Trump targeted Merchan’s daughter online.

Trump has launched at least a dozen attempts to bog down what’s expected to be his first criminal trial of four — and the only one, so far, scheduled to take place before the November presidential election.

In recent weeks, Merchan has denied his requests to delay the trial until the Supreme Court rules on his presidential immunity claim in his separate election subversion case and to push it back by months while his lawyers review old records tied to Cohen’s 2018 conviction. The judge has yet to rule on Trump’s requests that Merchan recuse himself because of his daughter’s job at a political firm that works with Democrats — having denied the request the first time it was made, in August — and to adjourn the trial until media interest wanes.

Trump has pleaded not guilty to 34 felonies in the case alleging that, in 2017, he disguised reimbursement to Cohen, his fixer-turned-public critic, for an illicit scheme carried out before the 2016 election that included paying Daniels, Playboy model Karen McDougal and a Trump Tower doorman into silence about a series of alleged sex scandals.

Trump’s lawyer Susan Necheles and a Bragg spokeswoman declined to comment.

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