Former United States President Donald Trump faces legal tests in New York and Washington on Thursday in two separate cases that hang over his campaign to return to the Oval Office in the November election.
In New York, the third day of witness testimony is to be held in a historic criminal trial, the first against a US president. Tabloid publisher David Pecker is again expected to take the stand as prosecutors seek to paint a picture of a coordinated effort to influence the 2016 presidential election through malfeasance.
But Trump’s attention may be elsewhere with the US Supreme Court set to consider whether Trump can be prosecuted or claim immunity in a federal case related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
Trump had requested permission to skip the New York trial for the day to sit in on the Supreme Court session, but the request was denied.
“We have a big case today,” Trump told construction workers in Manhattan during a brief campaign stop before the day’s court proceedings. “The judge isn’t allowing me to go.”
In New York, Trump has been charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business documents related to payments made to adult film star Stormy Daniels.
The falsification charges concern the alleged mislabelling of repayments that Trump made to his lawyer Michael Cohen, who had paid $130,000 to Daniels in return for her silence over an alleged sexual encounter with Trump. For the felony charges to stick, prosecutors must persuade the jury that the misrepresentations were done with the intent to commit or cover up another crime.
In opening statements on Monday, prosecutors focused primarily on what they described as an illegal effort to “undermine the integrity” of the 2016 presidential election, in which Trump defeated former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.
