Assuming there are no more delays, Monday, April 15 will mark a first in United States history.
That day, jury selection in Donald Trump's first criminal trial is scheduled to begin in New York City — where Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. will try to show jurors that Trump, in 2016, falsified business records in order to make hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels. According to Michael Cohen, Trump's former personal attorney and fixer and a key witness in the case, the payments were made in order to hide an extramarital affair.
MSNBC legal analyst Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general under former President Barack Obama, discussed the case during a Sunday, April 7 conversation with MSNBC's Jen Psaki — and predicted that Trump will be found guilty.
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Trump, on April 5, tried to delay the trial again by asking for Justice Juan Merchan to be removed from the case — claiming that Merchan is guilty of political bias. But Katyal doesn't think Trump's request will be granted.
Katyal told Psaki, former White House press secretary in the Biden Administration, "I think (the trial) will start despite this last-minute attempt to delay…. I don't think it's going to be delayed. I mean, Trump's decisions all throughout — his legal strategy — is: first lie, then deny, then delay. And we're on the delay phase of this. It's his last-ditch effort…. We will see that trial begin, and I strongly suspect Donald Trump will be convicted at the end of that trial."
Katyal continued, "That will be the first former president to have been convicted criminally."
The legal analyst added that if special counsel Jack Smith's Mar-a-Lago documents case goes to trial despite Judge Aileen Cannon's "machinations," Trump "is almost certainly going to be convicted there as well."
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