Trump seeks trial delay for hush money case pending Supreme Court's review: Latest – The Independent

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Nation’s highest court will hear Trump’s arguments on his ‘immunity’ defence on 25 April
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Trump says 2024 election will be ‘single most important day in history of our country’
Donald Trump’s attorneys want the judge overseeing his criminal case in New York to take the trial off the calendar until the US Supreme Court decides whether the former president can claim “immunity” from prosecution in a separate case.
The nation’s highest court will hear Mr Trump’s arguments on his “immunity” defence on 25 April, the final day for oral arguments in this year’s session, and one month after his trial in New York is scheduled to begin.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump falsely claimed in his “play by play” commentary of the State of the Union that “Republicans have no plan to cut Social Security, a made-up story by Crooked Joe!”
On CNBC Monday morning, in response to a question about “how to handle entitlements, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,” Mr Trump said: “There is a lot you can do in terms of entitlements, in terms of cutting, and in terms of, also, the theft and the bad management of entitlements … I know that they’re gonna end up weakening Social Security because the country is weak.”
President Joe Biden shared the clip on X saying: “Not on my watch.”
Donald Trump and President Joe Biden traded barbs on Saturday as they both campaigned in Georgia, signifying the key role the state may play in November’s general election.
Mr Trump, who faces criminal charges for undermining the 2020 US presidential election in the state, repeatedly insisted falsely that he was the victim of election fraud.
He blasted Georgia district attorney, Fani Willis, who is prosecuting the former US president for interfering with the 2020 election.
“They’re trying to take us out, and it’s not going to work,” Mr Trump told a rally in Rome, Georgia.
He also devoted much of his time to the immigration crisis in the US, blaming Mr Biden for the death of 22-year-old nursing student Laken Riley who was killed last month allegedly by an undocumented immigrant from Venezuela.
During his State of the Union remarks, Mr Biden used the term “illegal” immigrant to refer to Riley’s alleged murderer, to which he apologised on Saturday.
“Joe Biden went on television and apologized for calling Laken’s murderer an illegal…Biden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer,” Mr Trump said at the rally in Georgia.
Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel has revealed that he was told not to read out Donald Trump’s criticism of the ceremony live on air.
During last night’s Oscars, which saw Oppenheimer and Poor Things both win big, Kimmel read aloud a statement posted by Trump on his social media site Truth Social in which the former US president attacked the presenter’s hosting abilities.
“Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars,” Trump wrote. “His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be…Also a really bad politically correct show tonight, and for years – Disjointed, boring, and very unfair. Why don’t they just give the Oscars to those that deserve them. Maybe that way their audience and TV ratings will come back from the depths. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
In response, Kimmel joked: “Blah, blah, blah … OK, now, see if you can guess which former president just posted that on Truth Social. Anyone? No? Well, thank you, President Trump. Thank you for watching, I’m surprised you’re still up – isn’t it past your jail time?”
Speaking to Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos immediately after the ceremony on their “Live” TV special, Kimmel said members of the production team had tried to discourage him from reading out the criticism.
“They’re like, ‘You’ve got a little bit of time’ and I was like, ‘I’m reading the Trump tweet,’ and they’re like, ‘No, no, don’t read that,’” Kimmel said with a laugh. “[I was like] ‘Yes I am.’”
Donald Trump’s bond payment to E Jean Carroll is set to go ahead after Judge Lewis Kaplan endorsed a memo from Ms Carroll’s lawyer.
Judge Lewis Kaplan endorsed a memo from E Jean Carroll’s attorney

Joe Biden walked back his use of the term “illegal” when describing an undocumented migrant and doubled down on his belief that the Supreme Court was wrong in its 2022 abortion access ruling during a recent interview.
Mr Biden sat down with MSNBC’s “The Sunday Show” for a rare, wide-ranging interview just days after he gave the State of the Union address.
He refused to back down on his belief that the Supreme Court fumbled its 2022 Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health ruling.
“I think [the Supreme Court] made a wrong decision. I think they read the Constitution wrong. I think they made a mistake,” Mr Biden said.
Mr Biden said he found the Supreme Court’s observation that women can vote to change the laws in their individual states if they want access to abortion services to be “insulting” and referenced it during his speech.
“They used the phrase that women can vote making change if they want to,” Mr Biden said. “I found that somewhat insulting, the idea that they don’t think [women] can. Women are speaking now. They spoke out in 2022. They spoke out in 2024 — 2020. This is what’s going to happen. And I was just making clear, women speak up. This is going to change.”
Donald Trump’s attorneys want the judge overseeing his criminal case in New York to take the trial off the calendar until the US Supreme Court decides whether the former president can claim “immunity” from prosecution in a separate case.
Jury selection for a criminal trial on charges connected to hush money payments to an adult film star ahead of the 2016 presidential election is scheduled for 25 March. It is the first criminal proceeding against the former president – and the first ever against any former president – among the four criminal cases he faces in four jurisdictions.
The nation’s highest court will hear Mr Trump’s arguments on his “immunity” defence on 25 April, the final day for oral arguments in this year’s session, and one month after his trial in New York is scheduled to begin. A federal judge and appeals court have already shot down his attempts to evade criminal prosecution on charges connected to his attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election.
A ruling from the Supreme Court is likely to follow several weeks later.
In a filing on Monday, Mr Trump’s attorneys argued that statements that Mr Trump made on Twitter and to news networks about his former attorney Michael Cohen in 2018 “implicate the concept of official acts for purposes of presidential immunity,” but the filing does not address the alleged repayment scheme that is central to the case – and took place months before Mr Trump entered the White House.
His Twitter account was “an official communications channel during his Presidency, to communicate with the public regarding matters of public concern,” according to Mr Trump’s attorneys Todd Blanche and Susan Nechles.
Donald Trump has requested that the judge in charge of his criminal business fraud case in connection to hush money payments to an adult actress delay the upcoming trial until the US Supreme Court has finished reviewing his immunity claim in another case.
The hush money is currently scheduled to start on 25 March.
Donald Trump may have hit out at Jimmy Kimmel’s hosting of the Oscars, but he’s no stranger to lambasting the Academy Awards. In fact, Trump’s criticism of the show is something of an Oscar night tradition.
During tonight’s Oscars, which saw Oppenheimer and Poor Things dominate the wins, Kimmel read aloud a statement posted by Trump on his social media site Truth Social in which the former US president attacked the presenter’s hosting abilities.
“Has there EVER been a WORSE HOST than Jimmy Kimmel at The Oscars,” Trump wrote. “His opening was that of a less than average person trying too hard to be something which he is not, and never can be.” In response, Kimmel joked: “Isn’t it past your jail time?”
Unusually, this is not the first time Trump has gone after the Oscars. Or even the second or third time. In 2021, he claimed that “the Oscars” is “a far less important and elegant name” than “the Academy Awards”, and poked fun at the show’s declining ratings. “If they keep with the current ridiculous formula, it will only get worse – if that’s possible,” he wrote on Twitter.
In 2020, Trump became distracted during a rally and went on a rant about that year’s Best Picture prize being awarded to Bong Joon-ho’s celebrated class satire Parasite. “By the way, how bad were the Academy Awards this year, do you see?” Trump asked the crowd. “And the winner [was] a movie from South Korea. What the hell was all that about? We got enough problems with South Korea, on trade, and on top of it they give it the best movie of the year. Was it good?”
Then he complained that films were not as good as they used to be. “Can we get Gone with the Wind back, please? Sunset Boulevard! So many great movies.” He also added that he was not a fan of Brad Pitt, who won Best Supporting Actor that night for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, dubbing him “a little wiseguy”.
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Jimmey Kimmel read out Trump’s tweet live
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