Trial will test Trump's limits in making political gains from legal troubles

For all their fuss, no one in Donald J. Trump's political circles actually thinks a criminal conviction will help him battle the independent voters and suburban women who lost him the presidency in 2020.

But since Mr. Trump was first indicted, he and his team have looked to securing the nomination as a vital necessity. And now that he's about to become the first former president of the United States to stand trial, some of those advisers — who long ago realized that his freedom is intertwined with the outcome of the 2024 election — see a ray of hope in the calendar.

On Thursday, a New York judge set a March 25 start date for a trial on the indictment filed by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin L. Bragg, accusing Mr. Trump of falsifying company records to cover up refunds for a hush-money payment in 2016 to a porn star who said she had an affair with him.

Legal observers have noted that, compared to the charges Trump faces for retaining sensitive national security documents and obstructing efforts to retrieve them, or to the charges accusing him of conspiring to defraud the United States in attempting to overthrow an election undo, the silent money issue seems much less burdensome.

And those hush money charges represent a low-level crime, with relatively fewer potential prison sentences.

“There is absolutely no crime in this lawless case,” said Steven Cheung, a spokesman for Mr. Trump, emphasizing that it is an attempt to disrupt the election and that Mr. Bragg should “focus instead on cleaning up New York” and about local crime.

On a personal level, Mr. Trump is deeply unhappy about the matter. It's filth about his personal life and it infuriated him when details of the hush money became public in 2018, while he was president. He has made it clear to his colleagues that he wants to see it go.

But politically, Trump's advisers have exploited the hush-money charge to great effect. It was the first of four charges he faced in the 2024 primaries, sending his fundraising through the roof and prompting wary Republicans — including his opponents — to question the charges.

The Trump team's approach since the indictment of Bragg has been to portray all of his criminal exposure — 91 crimes in all — as part of one big conspiracy by President Biden and the Democrats to stop him.

“This all comes from the DOJ, this all comes from Washington,” Mr. Trump said after the hearing that set the trial date, expanding his baseless claim across several civil lawsuits he has faced. He had tried again to postpone the procedure, but to no avail.

“It's all a rigged — it's a rigged state, it's a rigged city, it's a disgrace,” Mr. Trump said, shortly after the judge, Judge Juan M. Merchan, said the case involved “serious allegations.” about covering up a payout. influence an election.

Mr. Trump offered no substantiation for his claim that every lawsuit he has faced is manipulated from the top down, and that never happened.

And there's a significant downside for him to having a local trial take place: Unlike the federal cases, Trump can't try to pardon himself if he runs for president again. Yet questions remain about the practical reality of imposing a prison sentence on an elected president in a local case.

And as a matter of raw political optics ahead of Election Day, starting the hush money trial first means a month of intense media attention focused on issues that may be less of an issue to the public than if the federal election subversion trial were taking place in Washington. went first as expected.

“You can get plenty of witnesses who will argue that this was not improper, that it is done all the time, and that being willing to pay it is not in fact an acceptance of any guilt, but that he didn't want the publicity. , and it's done quite often,” said Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker and an ally of Mr. Trump.

Mr. Trump's allies have repeatedly pointed to the fact that Mr. Bragg is a Democrat, and that his predecessor, along with federal prosecutors, has not filed charges related to the facts of the case, to emphasize his claims of victimization . (Mr. Bragg represents a municipality where Democrats overwhelmingly make up the people registered to vote).

Mr. Trump complained Thursday that the lawsuit would keep him off the campaign trail. But in January he opted to attend two civil trials that he was not required to attend, in part because, as one adviser said privately, he viewed the appearances as campaign events.

The Trump campaign has been preparing to host evening events with Mr. Trump in New York and other locations during the hush money trial.

“I can't emphasize this enough,” Mr. Gingrich said. “Donald Trump is not a candidate. Donald Trump is the leader of a movement, and leaders of movements are psychologically completely different from candidates.” The reason, he said, is that his supporters are “followers.” They are not voters.”

Mr. Trump is about to test the limits of the benefits his political campaign can bring to the criminal justice system.

The key witness in the case, Michael D. Cohen, worked for Mr. Trump for years and provided testimony at a 2019 House hearing that closed the New York attorney general's successful civil fraud case against Mr. Trump and helped boost his business. Mr. Trump and his allies have repeatedly denounced Mr. Cohen, who has laid bare his experiences working for the former president in a tell-all book and in interviews.

A parade of other witnesses from the period may also yield testimony that is problematic for him.

And in three different trials in Manhattan over the past two years, three juries have decided against Mr. Trump or his companies. While making Mr. Bragg a villain may work with Republicans politically, it will not have a broader impact, some strategists argue.

“I think the mistake Trump is making is that ultimately this will not be Alvin Bragg, but a jury of his fellow citizens, and that Americans respect the jury system and take jurors' verdicts seriously. said Geoff Garin, a Democratic pollster.

Yet Trump was elected in 2016 despite a long trail of negative incidents related to his character. And polls vary on how many of his supporters, who say they will support him, would abandon him if he is convicted in a criminal case.

“After the last eight years, that self-selection alone is enough to tell you that they won't have much trouble explaining away an adverse legal ruling, let alone one on dubious grounds,” said Liam Donovan, a Republican strategist.