Trump lashes out at judge in hush money case after trial date set

Former President Trump lashed out Tuesday at the judge who rejected attempts to delay his hush money trial in New York, calling him a “certified Trump Hater.”

Judge Juan Merchan at a Monday hearing set the trial for April 15, denying Trump the chance to delay all his criminal trials until after the November election.

“Judge Juan Merchan, a very distinguished looking man, is nevertheless a true and certified Trump Hater who suffers from a very serious case of Trump Derangement Syndrome,” the former president posted to Truth Social. “In other words, he hates me!”

His post referenced reports that Merchan’s daughter is an executive at a progressive digital agency and said the judge treated a “long term employee, elderly and not in good health” — an apparent reference to Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s former chief financial officer — “viciously.”

Merchan oversaw Weisselberg’s criminal trial, which ended with a plea deal that saw him sentenced to five months in jail for his participation in a tax-fraud scheme. Trump’s lawyers accused Merchan of overstepping by attempting to induce Weisselberg to cooperate against Trump. 

Trump’s attorneys cited both issues when they called on Merchan to recuse himself last year. In a separate post Tuesday, Trump again called for Merchan to step down because “HE CANNOT GIVE ME A FAIR TRIAL.”

“These COUNTRY DESTROYING SCOUNDRELS & THUGS HAVE NO CASE AGAINST ME. WITCH HUNT!” Trump posted.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has looked to postpone all four of his criminal cases past the November election.

The hush money trial was scheduled to begin Monday, but Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s (D) office at the last minute allowed a multiweek delay U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York turned over more than 100,000 pages of records. Trump argued that Bragg is working with “Crooked Joe Biden” in the “ridiculous case” against him.

The parties convened for a hearing Monday to sort through the document issue, both sides trading blame for why the documents were presented so late. Trump was in attendance and in comments after the hearing, he reiterated his claims that the cases against him are efforts to intervene in the upcoming election.

“The trial should not be allowed to start in the middle of my campaign for President,” he said. “They could have filed more than three years ago – THEY WAITED!”

He has been charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records to his former personal attorney Michael Cohen, who paid adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election to stay quiet about the alleged affair she had with Trump. The former president has pleaded not guilty.