(The Center Square) – Opening arguments could begin next week in the hush money trial of former President Donald Trump.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys this week picked 12 jurors and six alternates to decide the high-profile criminal case in New York, the first time a former president has gone on trial.
Trump, 77, returned to court Friday for the fourth day of the history-making trial.
Judge Juan Merchan said opening arguments will be delivered by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s team and Trump defense attorneys, Fox News reported.
Merchan’s gag order remains in place. Merchan imposed the order last month before the trial began. The order prohibits Trump from making or directing others to make public statements about witnesses concerning their potential participation or about counsel in the case or about court staff, District Attorney staff or family members of staff.
“Judge Merchan is ‘railroading’ me, at breakneck speed, in order to completely satisfy his ‘friends.’ Additionally, he has ‘GAGGED’ me so that I cannot talk about the most important of topics, including his totally disqualifying conflict of interest, and taking away my Constitutional Right of Free Speech,” Trump posted on his social media platform Friday afternoon. “Almost every Legal Scholar and Expert has stated that there is ‘NO CASE,’ that this is a SCAM brought about by a Corrupt District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, who has let Violent Crime in New York flourish at levels never seen before, working with Crooked Joe Biden’s DOJ, IN ORDER TO HARM HIS POLITICAL OPPONENT, ME. THIS IS ELECTION INTERFERENCE AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. MAGA2024!”
Trump will spend four days a week in court in New York for the next six to eight weeks on state charges that he disguised hush money payments to two women as legal expenses during the 2016 election.
Trump pleaded not guilty in April 2023 to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records.
Trump faces 88 felony charges spread across four cases in Florida, Georgia, New York and Washington.
Modern day Witch Hunt.
The world is watching…. and laughing .
When citizen observers start spontaneously combusting on the courthouse steps you just got to know it’s a bonifide Witch Hunt. This Judge has earned himslef a stake driven through this chest where his heart used to reside..
ITS a kangaroo court, PURE and simple.
Judge Juan Merchan and Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg have two things in common: Merchan and Bragg are Democrats and all Democrats are communists. In other words, Merchan and Bragg are Democrat communists. Hey Merchan and Bragg, you sure have a lot to be proud of!!!!!!
This Shakespearean Merchan of Venon and his Supercilious vociferous Bragg, both demand their Trump pound of flesh, but will only succeed in getting their own butt shot off when their fake accusations backfire upon them.
This whole case is about an accounting entry from 2016 in which Donald Trump did nothing wrong. So in 2024 it is the crime of the century, but thats not election interference according to the democrats and the millions that Biden got from China and Ukraine and which he actually did hide from the IRS is fine. Nothing to see there…Please!
YET NOTHING they did, such as DELIBERATELY STIFLYING and lying about hillary and the debacle with russiagate, was ‘election interference’..
“AG James: Bond company does not have resources to pay Trump’s 175 million Bond”,,,then call for James Bond to eliminate the problem,,,without prejudice. She wants Trump’s Gold, so give her the Gold finger and take away her license to kill to leave her only a Quantum of Silence. She is not the Democrat party spy who loved me but the spy who prosecutes me.
Intimidation thick. Somebody’s going to be frozen and hang jury. Intimidation thick. All this gag order business planned routine.