CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen slammed Donald Trump’s rejected effort to delay his hush money trial in New York saying it was “a deadly loser from the get-go.”
Trump’s lawyers had asked the appeals court to halt the trial because “an impartial jury cannot be selected right now based on prejudicial pretrial publicity.” They also sought to move the location of the trial to a more Trump-friendly area in the state.
Judge Lizbeth González decline to delay the trial.
However, Eisen said he saw this delay tactic coming months ago.
“It’s known as a Section 230 motion.You go directly to the appellate court, not the trial judge. You say, ‘Hey, too much pretrial publicity. Move this case.’ Of course, he was going to try it by my count. It’s his ninth delay tactic,” Eisen said on CNN’s The Situation Room, according to a clip shared by Mediate.
He continued: “It wasn’t going to work because Donald Trump himself is responsible for so much of the pretrial publicity. The judge also released a very detailed juror questionnaire today where jurors are going to be asked about dozens of potential sources of knowledge about the case. And using that questionnaire, and then interrogating the jurors in that courtroom is how you will screen for bias, not moving the case. It was a dead loser from the get-go.”
Trump faces 34 counts of falsifying business records in connection with a hush money payment to a porn star to cover up an alleged affair ahead of the 2016 election. He has pleaded not guilty. The trial is set to begin April 15.
