Former president and leading GOP candidate Donald Trump may miss his son’s graduation due to his ongoing “hush money” trial.
Trump, who is in the middle of a prosecution for allegedly paying off a stripper to keep quiet about a supposed affair, has expressed outrage against New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan for not immediately granting his request to skip one day of the trial so he can attend his son Barron’s high school graduation.
The jury selection began on Monday April 15, at which time Merchan revealed that Trump had requested to miss the May 17 trial date so he could travel to Florida for the commencement ceremony. However, the judge said he was not going to make that decision yet, citing the need to see “if we are on time and where we are in the trial” at the time of the graduation.
NEW: Donald Trump confirms that New York Judge Juan Merchan said he won't be able to attend his son Barron Trump's graduation.
Trump also said the judge won't let him attend a hearing before the Supreme Court.
"It's a political witch hunt… we are not going to be given a… pic.twitter.com/geleqKWSOk
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 15, 2024
Following the day in court—which marked just the beginning of the jury selection process that could take two weeks—Trump told reporters that “it looks like the judge will not let me go to the graduation of my son, who has worked very, very hard.”
He noted that Barron had been “looking forward” to the culmination of his high school career with both his parents at his side and slammed Merchan for potentially not “allow[ing] me to escape this scam.” In addition to refusing to give an immediate postponement of the May 17 trial date, the judge denied Trump’s request to be allowed to watch the Supreme Court arguments about his presidential immunity defense on April 25.
The defendant also criticized the case against him, saying that Merchan and the prosecutors have “nothing” in the legal battle that they “think should be a trial.”
The criminal case, commonly referred to as the former president’s hush money trial, involves accusations that Trump lied on official documents in an effort to hide payments he made to adult actress Stormy Daniels, who claims without evidence that she had an affair with him nearly 20 years ago. Prosecutors say that the former president convinced his personal attorney, Michael Cohen, to make payments of up to $130,000 to Daniels just before the 2016 presidential election took place.
Trump, now the presumptive GOP nominee who is likely to face Democrat President Joe Biden in a rematch in the November 2024 election, has been charged with 34 felonies related to inaccurate business records. All charges against him have been consistently denied by the former president.
