Judge gives last-minute denial to Trump's demand to stop hush money trial

Judge Juan Merchan made a last-minute ruling Friday that denied Donald Trump's attempt to stop his New York hush money trial, claiming pretrial publicity made it impossible for him to get a fair trial.

The first of the former president's criminal cases to go before a jury is now almost certain to start Monday.

In just four pages, Merchan shot down the argument that the publicity meant it would be impossible to find impartial jurors in Manhattan.

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Experts have pointed out that Trump himself has spent the past year giving his trials publicity. In fact, former federal prosecutor Glenn Kirschner noted Monday that Trump himselfposted 77 messages, many of them 'railing" against his trials, on Easter Sunday alone.

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Merchan explained that media coverage isn't a novel issue and there are many measures that he can use to help minimize the prejudicial impact.

Analysts have said that publicity around such a high profile case is inevitable.

"The pretrial publicity surrounding Donald Trump, will never subside until all four of Donald Trump's criminal prosecutions, two federal and two state, have concluded," said former prosecutor Glenn Kirschner on MSNBC.

The judge also addressed Trump's claim that his former CFO, Allen Weisselberg, was forced to accept a guilty plea on charges that he lied while giving testimony in the former president's earlier civil fraud trial.

"The People have provided the transcript of Weisselberg's guilty plea, where he answered under oath, in open court, under the penalties of perjury, that no one had forced him to plead guilty. This contrasts with Defendant's accusations, which are entirely unsupported. In fact, defense counsel clearly ignores the words contained in the official transcript," the final page reads.

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