Donald Trump to face first criminal trial next month in ‘hush money’ case

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Donald Trump will next month become the first former US president to face a criminal trial, after a New York state judge declined to dismiss or delay the “hush money” case brought against him over payments allegedly made to the porn actress Stormy Daniels in the lead-up to the 2016 election.

Trump, who is the frontrunner to once again be the Republican nominee for president, sat in silence at the hearing on Thursday where Judge Juan Merchan announced that, after consultation with the federal judge overseeing the separate election interference case in Washington, the Manhattan court would begin selecting a jury on March 25, for a trial expected to last six weeks.

Trump’s attempt to dismiss the Manhattan criminal case, which his lawyers had argued was “politically motivated” and unconstitutional, was wholly rejected by Merchan. The judge wrote that the indictment’s claim “that the defendant paid an individual $130,000 to conceal a sexual encounter in an effort to influence the 2016 presidential election and then falsified 34 business records to cover up the pay-off” were “serious allegations”.

Todd Blanche, a lawyer for Trump, said that the decision was a “great injustice” and that scheduling a trial during the presidential primary season amounted to “election interference” by the court.

Blanche further argued that the trial should be delayed because a jury pool would be tainted by the coverage of writer E Jean Carroll’s civil litigation in Manhattan federal court against the former president, in which Trump was found liable for sexual assault and defamation and ordered to pay a total of more than $88mn in damages. Merchan declined to heed the request.

The parties also argued over the questions that would be used to vet potential jurors, including those relating to where individuals get their news or whether they…