- Lawyers have asked to delay a trial in which Trump is accused of siccing security on protesters.
- Jury selection would conflict with Trump's deposition in the NY AG's probe of
the Trump Organization .
So many court cases, so little time.
Lawyers for former President
The first week of that trial would conflict with a deposition that Trump must give in New York in Attorney General
The double booking is to be expected. No fewer than seven of Trump's New York legal battles have dates, deadlines, or depositions between now and early August.
With the lone exception of testifying for James, Trump does not have to personally be present while his lawyers hash out everything from the indictment of his company to why he retweeted an animation that used the song "Electric Avenue."
But Trump's small army of East Coast lawyers is busy, busy, busy.
Busiest of all may be Alina Habba and her
One is over James' demand for Trump's personal business documents, a matter for which Trump conditionally remains in contempt of court.
The other is the attorney general's demand for Trump's testimony. Trump and his two eldest children, Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr., must submit to questioning under oath before the James' lawyers sometime between July 15 and July 22.
Habba did not immediately respond to a request for comment on her cases.
"Defendant is now mandated to appear for a deposition on the week of July 18," Habba wrote in her Thursday night letter to Supreme Court Justice Doris M. Gonzalez of New York, who will preside over the Bronx protester trial.
"As this office is also representing Defendant in that matter, I am required to defend my client's deposition and will not be available from July 18-22," Habba wrote to the judge.
James won't budge an inch on the deposition dates, Habba wrote. So it's the trial date that's gotta give.
"We have been advised that the OAG will not consent to an adjournment of these dates, as it contends that any delay could potentially conflict with the relevant statute of limitations," Habba's letter said. "As a result, we request a brief adjournment of the current trial date and seek this Court's permission to schedule jury duty for July 25, 2022, or a date thereafter as the Court sees fit."
The judge has yet to rule on moving the protester-trial date.
Here's how Trump's crowded legal dance card is shaping up for the summer. All dates are subject to shuffling as the parties try to squeeze everything in.
Week of June 20
Monday is a deadline for James' office to tell a Manhattan judge whether — after two years of legal battles — it's finally satisfied with Trump's efforts to comply with the subpoena for his documents and whether it thinks Trump's costly contempt-of-court order should therefore be lifted once and for all.
A hearing for oral arguments on that matter would likely be set for later in the week.
A side battle to the Bronx-protester trial had been scheduled for an in-person hearing on Wednesday, but that date has since canceled.
The lawyers for Trump and for the protesters are accusing each other of unethical behavior relating to the pretrial release of deposition excerpts that showed Trump had an inordinate fear that "dangerous" fruit would be flung at him during protests.
The judge will instead preside next month over each of the parties' demand that the other be sanctioned in the fruit fracas.
Week of July 11
On July 12, lawyers for the Trump Organization and Allen Weisselberg, its former chief financial officer, appear before a Manhattan criminal judge.
"We will discuss all pretrial matters," Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan of New York said in setting the date from the bench Wednesday. "And we'll set a firm trial date."
Manhattan prosecutors allege — and defense lawyers deny — that Weisselberg and the Trump Organization set up a payroll scheme that let company executives disguise millions in pay as income-tax-free fringe benefits.
A late-August/early-September trial has been discussed, though Weisselberg could yet plead guilty and face minimum jail time.
On Tuesday, a remote hearing is scheduled in Trump's 2021 civil suit in Dutchess County, New York, against his niece Mary Trump and The New York Times.
Trump is seeking "no less than One Hundred Million Dollars" in damages over The Times' Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of his tax records.
July 15 is the court-mandated starting bell for the three Trumps to begin depositions in the James' investigation of the Trump Organization.
Week of July 18
The three Trumps' depositions before the attorney general's lawyers must conclude by week's end.
And Wednesday is a motion-filing deadline in a lawsuit by the disco-reggae star Eddy Grant, who sued Trump for copyright infringement in federal court in Manhattan last year.
Grant is seeking $300,000 in damages over the use of his hit song "Electric Avenue" in a Biden-bashing animation that Trump tweeted during his 2020 presidential campaign. Trump has been court-ordered to give a deposition in that case by Tuesday.
Week of July 25
This is the tentative new start date of the protester trial in the Bronx.
Trump is a star defendant, and his fixer turned critic, Michael Cohen, is the star witness against him, but neither will appear in person at trial.
Instead, jurors will hear trial depositions previously taped by the now arch enemies.
Trump has sworn he had nothing to do with the security-on-protester violence outside Trump Tower and that he hadn't even known there was a protester issue until the following day.
Cohen has countered in his own deposition that his then-boss was indeed there — and in charge. Cohen said in his own deposition that he was with Trump, upstairs in the Trump Organization's headquarters, as Trump told his top security officer of the protesters, "Get rid of them."
Week of August 1
Finally, August 3 is the day for depositions to begin behind the scenes in the writer E. Jean Carroll's lawsuit against Trump in federal court in Manhattan.
Habba and Madaio are the attorneys representing Trump on this case.
Carroll accuses Trump of raping her in the mid-1990s; her lawyers have said they will not seek a deposition from Trump — but they do want his DNA, which they hope to compare with a dress Carroll says she was wearing when the incident happened.
As for the rest of August, the Bronx-protester trial could drag on into midmonth. And August 29 is the tentative trial start date for the "Electric Avenue" trial, provided a settlement is not reached.