Donald Trump seeks delay in porn star hush money trial

Lawyers for the presumptive Republican nominee are seeking to extend the principle of presidential immunity.

Donald Trump attends the Ultimate Fighting Championship at the Kaseya Centre in Miami at the weekend. Picture: AFP

Donald Trump has asked the New York judge presiding over his hush money case to delay the trial until the US ­Supreme Court rules on his claim of presidential immunity.

The presumptive Republican presidential nominee is scheduled to go on trial in Manhattan on March 25 on charges of falsifying business records.

In a motion filed overnight on Monday, Mr Trump’s lawyers asked judge Juan Manuel Merchan to adjourn the state trial until the nation’s highest court rules on the former president’s immunity claim.

The Supreme Court is to hear arguments in the immunity case on April 25 and is not expected to issue a ruling until late June or early July. Mr Trump’s lawyers have sought repeatedly to delay his various trials until after the ­November presidential election, when he could potentially have all of the federal cases against him dropped if he wins.

Mr Trump, 77, faces 34 counts of accounting fraud linked to pre-election payments made to porn star Stormy Daniels. While the payments date to before the 2016 election, Mr Trump’s lawyers said prosecutors intend to introduce evidence dating from his time in the White House.

This raises the question of presidential immunity, they ­argued, because “Trump was President of the United States at the time of those actions in 2018”.

“Therefore, President Trump respectfully submits that an adjournment of the trial is appropriate to await further guidance from the Supreme Court,” they said.

The hush money case dates to the closing days of the 2016 election when Mr Trump was on the cusp of his shock win as a political outsider against Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

A New York grand jury ­indicted Mr Trump a year ago over the payments made to ­Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Prosecutors say the money was paid to ­silence Daniels over claims she had a tryst with Mr Trump in 2006 – a year after he married Melania Trump, a former model. Late in the campaign, Mr Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen arranged a payment of $US130,000 to Daniels in exchange for her pledge of confidentiality.

Meanwhile a lawyer for E. Jean Carroll, the magazine writer Mr Trump was found by a New York jury to have sexually assaulted and defamed, raised the possibility of bringing a third defamation case against the real estate tycoon. Mr Trump was ­ordered to pay $US83m to Carroll in January after being found guilty for a second time of defamation. Despite being twice found liable, Mr Trump continued to attack Carroll in recent days, claiming over the weekend that he was the victim of “false accusations”.

“The statute of limitations for defamation in most jurisdictions is between one and three years,” Carroll’s lawyer Robbie Kaplan said on Monday. “As we said after the last jury verdict, we continue to monitor every statement that Donald Trump makes about our client, E. Jean Carroll.”

AFP