Appeals court rejects Trump’s bid to move New York hush money trial

NEW YORK — A New York appeals court judge on Monday denied Donald Trump’s bid to move his hush money criminal trial out of Manhattan a week before its scheduled start.

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Jury selection is expected to begin on April 15.

The former president’s attorneys had argued at an emergency hearing that the trial should be postponed while they seek a change of venue to move it out of Manhattan, a heavily Democratic area, The Associated Press reported.

“Defendant’s application for a stay of trial ... pending the determination of defendant’s motion for change of venue, is hereby denied,” Judge Lizbeth Gonzalez wrote in a terse memo.

Gonzalez made the decision after hearing from Trump’s attorneys and lawyers from the Manhattan district attorney’s office, which has accused the former president of falsifying records to hide payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels, The New York Times reported.

Trump attorney Emil Bove brought up a survey and media study, included in a previous motion to Judge Juan Merchan to postpone the trial based on pretrial publicity, CNN reported. Merchan has yet to rule on that motion.

“In terms of pretrial publicity in this county this case stands alone,” Bove told the court.

Trump has suggested on social media that the trial should be moved to Staten Island, according to the AP. The former president carried the New York City borough in 2016 and 2020 -- the only one of the city’s five boroughs Trump won during both elections, according to the news organization.

Manhattan District Attorney’s Office Chief of Appeals Steven Wu contended that it was too late for Trump’s attorneys to file the change of venue so close to the trial’s start, CNN reported.

“Defendant has assumed throughout this argument here that publicity here is inherently prejudicial. The facts do not bear this out,” Wu said.  “This is the defendant coming into this argument with unclean hands because the publicity is in large part his own.”

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